Dawn of the Red Family: The Reunion
by zopponde
Summary: Warnings listed inside, on account that they won't fit here Third and final installment: When did Akatsuki get mail? Now, apparently, and today's comes with a letter to Itachi from another forgotten family member...
1. Prologue

**This story is the third in a series of (what I hope won't go past) three fanfictions centered on Akatsuki. If you stumble on this story and would like to read the beginning...that's what my profile's for.  
Oh. And if you _have_ read the previous stories--read my profile anyway. Just a bunch of bold letters and then you can skip to the bit before the line break thing...yeah.**

**A/n:** Look who's back from a month of really a lot of writing! That's right--MY MOTHER! x3 (strangely enough, she supposedly _does_ have an account here and all that...) oh, and I am too.  
On that note of really a lot of writing, I am getting kind of **sick** of writing at this point in my life. Do not expect chapters to come quickly. Like, at all. (furthermore, I really want to tie up the plot of my NaNo before I tie this one up.)

_Don't be fooled by the short A/n. This is the first chapter. You're seriously going to have to scroll--a LOT--to get to the actual story. At least the warnings only apply to the first posted chapter._

**Warnings:** Throughout this story (_but not ncessarily all in this chapter_), you will likely find: innaccurate sexual interpretations of actually innocent phrases; implied off-screen sex; sloppily censored foul language, which will occasionally slip through uncensored; shounen-ai, yaoi, slash, guy-on-guy, etc. pairings; likely shoujo-ai, yuri, slash, femmeslash, girl-on-girl, etc. pairings if I don't get an uprising against it; violence--which WON'T be off-screen this time :D ; useage of characters who do not belong to me; original characters; _ab_original characters (coughmarysuecoughrencough); the characters, original or not, made for this setting but by neither myself nor Masashi Kishimoto (_yes, kids, this warning COULD be made because of you_); some Oto ninjas will probably show up (yes, they get their own warning); incorrectly named canon characters (i.e. Konan is called Kai here because I didn't know better at the time); stupidly popular pairings (coughsasusakucoughnaruhinacoughsasodeicough); stupidly _un_popular pairings (coughitatobicoughinotencough); poor parenting; incest (literal and metaphorical); bad example for a functioning family; off-screen character death; _on_-screen character death; The Uchihas(tm) in all their violent and really-not-good-influence and seriously-kids-don't-follow-this-example glory; Hidan (yes, he does deserve his own warning); and _OMGWTF THE CHARACTERS WHO ACTUALLY RUN THE SHOW THIS THING'S BASED ON ARE GOING TO SHOW UP!_  
I'm probably forgetting something...

**Disclaimer:** List of things I own: Haruka, Shikai, Ren, the aforementioned Oto ninjas who will not be appearing in this chapter, annonymous ninjas who get to install a mail-slot in Akatsuki's front door (and somehow survived!), any other characters who never get named, the actual text, and my kick-ass long list of warnings.  
List of things I don't own: Pein, Konan (or Kai), Tobi, Itachi, Kisame, Zetsu, Sasori, Deidara, Kakuzu, Hidan, Naruto, Hinata, Sakura, Ino, TenTen, Tsunade, the guy who owns the ramen place, a bunch more people who don't really matter, such as Sasuke--oh, wait he does...I still don't own him. Neither do I own the one original character that I've rounded up who belongs to someone on deviantART (not that she even shows up yet), the original character who belongs to whoever steps up to the plate and sends me a bio for their OC so that said OC can appear in this story, sanity (whatever that is), my soul (that's yours if you review), a life (fandom ate it) (oh, and Marching Band took a few bites too), and a pet ferret.

* * *

Pein stared at the scene before him with the neutrality that he seemed to have invariably contracted from the repetition of this kind of behavior. 

Today's antic was, as predictable, being committed by Tobi. The masked ninja now found it necessary to organize the mail coming to Akatsuki's doorstep.

_Why_ there was mail on their doorstep, Pein would never know. He doubted with true sincerity that he _wanted_ to know. However, this morning, Tobi found it necessary to walk to the front door (again, for reasons well beyond Pein) and notice that a vaguely rectangular hole had been hacked into their door before it wound up lined neatly in a neat gold-colored metal rectangle that contrasted enough with the original hole that there was actually space near one of the corners that was a piece of hole that the golden rectangle could not be stretched to fit. It was obviously a rather shoddy job; whoever did it must have been in a rush when doing it.

Pein's thoughts were interrupted by Tobi dropping a letter onto the pancake on his plate. The letter was addressed to him, and had an official-looking seal on it, with a lot of words in Latin. Who the hell put _Latin_ on their seals, anyway? How dead a language could it be if it was still being used in these stupid overzealous seals? Pein hid the letter in his robes, intending to burn it later.

"And this one's for…" Tobi muttered to himself. "Um…hrm…I guess it's misaddressed," he decided. "Otou-sama, what do we do with misaddressed letters?"

Pein's forehead fell into his palm. "Tobi-kun, I really wouldn't know. I'd imagine that it should go in the paper shredder or something, but I don't remember us having one of those…" He sighed. "Of course, I don't remember us having a _mailing address_ either…"

Tobi hesitated, shrugged, and placed the letter that seemed to be the one in question into his own pile; Pein was close enough to read that it was addressed to someone named Uchiha Madara.

Tobi handed something to Hidan, who exclaimed, " 'Under Jashin'? I didn't know such a kick-ass magazine existed..." He glanced over to Kakuzu.

"You're _not_ buying a subscription," Kakuzu growled.

Sasori cursed as he read a letter from an official-looking envelope. "They could at least give me some _warning_ before expiring my library card..."

Kai opened a pink envelope and pulled out a card that she seemed careful to hide from mose eyes; Pein, of course, was directly beside her and needed only a glance to see the bright and cheerful image of a pine tree with various round ornaments decorating it and a star on the top; across the bottom read the words, "Merry Christmas from an old friend!" She sent an exasperated scowl to Pein and flipped the back half of it around to read the inner message, of which the most prominent words were scrawled across the bottom: "Enjoy your holidays! Have fun with making the world better! Good luck and sayounara! --Yahiko" Kai looked to Pein with a raised eyebrow, seeming to ask, "Who is this?" and Pein shrugged in response.

"And the last letter," Tobi declared, drawing all eyes away from letters and to the masked ninja as he held over his head an envelope with red corners and both addresses written in nearly illegible black calligraphy, "goes to Itachi-chan!" He tossed it to Itachi horizonatally, like a shuriken, and Itachi caught it between his first two fingers, his head not moved at all as he took a sip of coffee until after catching it. He then set down his mug and slid a finger beneath the flap to open it.

Itachi's eyes flickered across the page as he read the letter. The further down he read, the deeper his frown became, until he decided that he didn't need to read further and announced, "It's nothing to worry about. Just some junk mail."

Haruka, who had been working on her ninja skills over the past few years (and a lot of this training came with help from Itachi), disappeared and reappeared behind Itachi, who folded the page in half before she could actually read it, but she seemed to have memorized the image and responded to it anyway. "A reunion? That's not junk mail..."

Itachi's eyes squinted further. "It doesn't concern anybody here, Haruka-san." He twitched instinctively as Tobi suddenly appeared quite close behind him with the letter held high above the murderous Uchiha's head. Tobi then rushed to the other side of the table, behind Pein, and unfolded it to read it.

"It concerns _everybody_ here!" Tobi disagreed. "It says that you're invited to an Uchiha family reunion!"

Hidan snorted. "Do you seriously believe that shit? I mean, after...he..." Hidan made several vague gestures with his arms. "Just...no. Why the hell would anybody invite Itachi-chan to a reunion--_especially_ a bleeping _Uchiha_ reunion? The only Uchiha left wants to bleeping murder him!"

"That should make it obvious," Sasori pointed out. "It's probably a trap."

"Well, if it's a trap," Tobi wondered, "why does the letter say he should bring all his friends?"

Sasori shrugged. "To knock all of us out at once?"

"Why would they want to set us up for a trap?" Shikai asked suspiciously.

"Shikai-kun," Kai explained, "please remember that not everybody agrees with our goals to unify the ninja world."

Shikai nodded and Tobi went on, "Ha hah, Itachi-chan, your brother's funny! He says, 'Bring anyone who could fit in our family so we can expand ours a little--we really need that extension now, don't we?' Ha hah! Yeah, I guess we do..."

Pein sighed and shook his head. "You _do_ realize that we're _not_ going, right?"

"Awww, why not?" Tobi wondered innocently.

"Because it's a trap," Pein pointed out obviously at the same exact time as Sasori, Hidan, Kakuzu, Zetsu, Kisame, and Ren.

"But," Tobi argued, "if it was a trap, why is everyone going?"

"To get more of us at once," Sasori repeated.

"To avoid suspicion," Ren added.

"To make us think that it's not really a trap," Shikai added.

"Oji-san, I just said that," Ren pouted.

"No it's not!" Shikai denied.

"Shikai-kun, Ren-chan," Kai interrupted them before they started wrestling over who was right (they had done that before, and they were likely to do it again). "It doesn't matter who said what."

"Because," Pein added, "we're _still_ not going."

* * *

**A/n again:** I'm sure you all know what happens next. I mean, the plot would have just totally died if anyone just listened to Pein. 

**On the miscelaneous to/from addresses on the letters:  
**_Uchiha Madara:_ I still don't know what to make of this being, but I still just can't associate this thing with Tobi. Masashi Kishimoto meant to send it to Tobi, but if the name on it is Madara, in _my_ story, that's a misaddressed envelope.  
_Yahiko:_ You know, I went back to the manga to reference this kid's name...and now I'm really really confused. Yahiko looks a lot more like he'd grow up to be the Pein we know than Nagato does...(and he probably would have said something else. I almost had him scribble some "CURSE YOU" or "YOUR PLAN WILL NEVER WORK" propaganda (because it would be funny to get a letter like that...), but it didn't seem like something that kid would say...

**Notes on Japanese:  
**_Sayounara--_ "Goodbye." I normally would have just said "goodbye," but sayounara is more like "Farewell. As in forever (or a really really long time)."  
The rest should already by known from previous installments of this series.  
And, yes, Shikai _is_, sortofkindoftechnically, Ren's uncle. Because Shikai is, by Akatsuki's family order, Tobi's brother, and Tobi is (one of) Ren's father(s), so...Shikai is Ren's uncle. Even though he's, like, seven or so years younger than her.

**Oh. And** my "e" key hasn't been working very well. I mean, it functions and all, but if I type too fast (and I do that a lot) and if I'm not careful about the angle on it (which also happens more than it should) then the e won't come out. So I keep having to go back and add an e in a lot of places. So, I'd like to (once again) bring up the fact that **I do not have a Beta-reader.**

**Oh yeah. And a preview:**  
Let's be honest--how many times to people actually _listen_ to Pein when he says "no"?  
Chapter to be written on hold until I get responses to a certain something on my profile (even negative, you-really-can't-slash-shouldn't-do-that-lady kinda responses.)


	2. Travel

**A/n:** I thought I already A/n'd this! Grargh...oh well.

Let's see...well, sorry about the lateness of this. Like, a lot. This, I believe, is a record on the time it's taken me to write a chapter. I think. It drove me crazy--it would already be up and everything, but I didn't have any time--like at all--and it drove me crazy that I MIGHT have gotten three hundred words a day. TT.TT It's pathetic how dependant I am on writing. I haven't been sleeping well because I was ranting to the ceiling about what I'd be writing IF I HAD TIME (I didn't turn it on because I'd then be hooked and wouldn't get ANY sleep). It's officially Exam Week now, which means I have the weekend, three half-days of school (which theoretically be a LOT of hard thinking followed by doing NOTHING so I can think about it, then go home and write about what I thought of), so hopefully that'll increase my writing time, and it'll be done quicker. At the same time, it's nearly Christmas already and I should be shopping, but I don't have any MONEY to buy things. Which rather sucks, because I love my family but I'm not even sure I have enough money to go halvsies with Nii-san on Mom's gift. This would be considerably less annoying if I wasn't the ONLY one without an actual job (I just do the chores and get ten dollars allowance, which tends to migrate to places where it promptly disappears), and so it's not like we're horribly poor and are barely scraping up a living and all that. And I have a bank account that was supposed to have several hundred in there, but it's actually empty right now because Mom had to use that money to throw my Dad off suspicion on one of his gifts.  
I might be able to ask Mom to change all the seventeen dollars that were in my possession until she borrowed them for supper last night for ones and fold them into something nifty and just give those out. Which would be a lot cooler if most of the people I know didn't somehow know each other and thus it would get pretty boring pretty quickly.  
I might also have just blown everyone off and told them that I literally could give them each two dollars and then be broke, but I seem to be the easiest person I know to buy things for, because I ALWAYS get a lot of presents, which isn't an issue until you realize that you can't get super-awesome-neat-ass gifts for EVERYONE because they got YOU neat-ass gifts off of seventeen dollars that your Mom borrowed for supper last night.  
/end rant

**Disclaimer:** I own Shikai, Haruka, and Ren. I also own a few other kids that have not yet shown up.  
Kitsuchi belongs to someone who has no account here but is fangirl-in-training of deviantART.  
Katena (though you don't really know her at all yet) belongs to daREALshikamaru  
Enaku (though you don't know him by name yet) belongs to Skullblade

* * *

Pein sighed and tapped his foot impatiently. He, as well as the rest of his supposed family, rested in a small clearing in the middle of the woods near their house. Tobi insisted on them leaving the house for a nice long stroll as one big happy family. Normally, Pein wouldn't have folded so easily (or at all), but Tobi went so far as to walk over to the light switch and turn it off, laughing maniacally. He then turned it back on. And then off. On again, off again, laughing maniacally the whole time, and before long, Pein was "persuaded". His primary concern at the moment was that Haruka and Shikai did not realize this weakness as a way to _always_ get their way.

"Tobi-kun," Pein addressed. "Can you _please_ stand up and keep going with us? It would be nice to have _some_ leisure time after this little _outing_."

Tobi stood up from the boulder he was resting on, Itachi hovering next to him, and sighed. "Otou-sama," he whined, "I can't go that fast!"

"Then _why_ did you want us to take this trip?" Pein demanded exasperatedly.

"Because we _need_ to go on this trip!" Tobi answered, his back straightening determinedly.

"Dare I ask _why_ we have to go?" Pein asked coolly.

"Because!" Tobi answered nondescriptly. "We're a _family_ and _families_ do things like this!"

Pein sighed, but followed the orange-masked man as he went further into the forest.

The walk continued for a while longer, Tobi stopping to rest a lot more often than Pein would prefer. He lost track of time; Pein didn't even notice how late it was until Deidara yawned, looked to the west, and made a startled cry that made Pein look in the same direction. He, too, raised his eyebrows in alarm—the sun was suspiciously close to the horizon.

"Otouto!" Deidara whined. "How _long_ have we been walking?"

Tobi shrugged. "A while, Tobi guesses…"

"Tobi-kun," Pein addressed harshly. "How far do you want us to go?"

"Umm…" Tobi stalled. "Maybe…you know, to…Konahagakure?"

"What the bleep is in Konahagakure?" Hidan demanded.

"Well," Tobi answered meekly, "there's supposed to be great cherry-blossom viewing in the spring—"

"It's halfway between winter and autumn, Otouto," Sasori pointed out. "It's not exactly spring."

"Um…great…pine-tree viewing?" Tobi rephrased in an obvious lie.

"Just tell us, Onii-san," Shikai ordered bossily.

"Ha hah," Tobi laughed nervously. "Well, there's also, kind of…you know…the Uchiha household…"

Pein stared coldly at his supposed son. "You're trying to take us to that suspicious reunion thing?"

"Well," Tobi answered defensively. "It's not that I'm taking you _there_ per se, I'm just trying to bring us all…to Konahagakure," he finished lamely, his fingers collecting as his shoulders hunched defensively, "so we could meet, you know…Itachi-chan's younger brother…"

"Idiot grandson!" Hidan cried loudly. "You're a total fucking idiot!"

"Otou-san," Shikai addressed, "what does fucking mean?"

"Never you mind, Shikai-kun," Kai answered.

"Tobi-kun, we already discussed this," Pein scolded. "We are _not_ going there, because the _actual_ intention is probably _not_ to 'meet the family,' it's more likely to 'exact revenge'."

"But we're already almost there," Tobi whined. "We'll never get home before dark, so we might as well just keep going to Konahagakure, right?"

Pein thought about this for a moment, and realized that his supposed son was right; the light was fading with a little more haste than would allow them a safe passage home. Admittedly, they were generally a large group of excellent shinobi, but Haruka and Shikai would probably fall asleep as they walked and he'd lose his son and daughter on the way back.

"Fine," Pein agreed begrudgingly. "But," he added, pointing his finger at Tobi, "we're not going without someone going before us to make sure it's safe. If they have any intelligence, they'll be looking for us at the gates—they'll recognize us immediately, and if they _really_ want to make certain of _anything_, they'll have everything set up at the door."

Tobi hesitated. "Otou-sama, why did you say that? Now Tobi doesn't really want to go alone…"

"He never said _you_ have to go," Itachi pointed out.

"But," Tobi whined, "who else is going to—"

A loud sneeze exploded from the nearby bushes; everybody jumped, thought the vast majority of them would never admit to it. All eyes turned to the source, and everybody saw a woman with pale purple hair braided down to her knees walking in the opposite direction that they were, some undergrowth between them. Pein thought he recognized her faintly; Sasori recognized her more quickly.

"Kitsuchi!" Sasori greeted, and the woman turned around, sniffing.

"Who's Kitsuchi?" Shikai asked.

Pein shrugged. Kakuzu answered, "She's one of the…_associates_ of our organization."

'_Oh yeah_,' Pein thought lamely. '_She's a spy for Akatsuki. How convenient_…' "Looks like you're off the hook, Tobi-kun."

* * *

Ren hissed a sigh as she followed Kitsuchi. The entire situation was rather humiliating—she had to change in the middle of the woods (at least the trees gave her some privacy), and her new clothes were replicas of Kitsuchi's, white shorts and a green tank top, without the kimono that her elder wore over it. The clothes were too big and it seemed that nobody in Akatsuki needed a belt, because nobody had one and she found that the pants had a tendency to start worming their way down her figure. 

Kitsuchi hissed back, "You think _you_ have it rough? Try having to do this for someone you _hate_. And _you_'re an actual member—how did _you_ get in but I didn't? You're only twelve years old!"

"Thirteen," Ren corrected quietly.

"Oh, what's the difference?" Kitsuchi sighed.

"A year of training with Akatsuki," Ren whispered back.

Kitsuchi glared and would have retorted if she hadn't been interrupted by a cool and quiet male voice addressing the two girls from behind. "Uchiha Kitsuchi and Ren…"

Both of them looked up to see a man with dark hair framing his face and whisking itself over the top of his head. '_What peculiar hair_,' she thought to herself, which could have been considered funny because she currently was standing next to Kitsuchi, whose pale violet hair went under her radar.

"That's us," Kitsuchi told him, seeming slightly more defensive in tone than was necessary.

The man squinted in skepticism. "I don't recall anybody in my family by either of those names…care to ex—"

"Well, you see," Kitsuchi's explanation came a little faster than could be safe, "My father was, you know, an Uchiha, and my mother was a…kunoichi. And, my dad went on a mission to the village she lived in, and then they fell in love, and then they had a baby, and…uh, yeah, I'm that baby," she explained cheerily. "But my dad was only there on a mission, so he kinda left and all, and…my mom raised me all by herself, and all that stuff.'

"What about your friend?" the man questioned further. "She's younger than…" He firmed his lip rather than continue.

"Huh?" Kitsuchi muttered, looking at Ren as if for the first time. "Um, she's uh…."

"Her daughter," Ren supplied.

"What?" Kitsuchi hissed, too quiet for their judge to hear. "No way—that means I had a kid when I was sixteen or something!"

"And how old was _your_ 'mother'?" Ren asked, her voice nearly silent.

Kitsuchi likely would have a harsh response if the other person present hadn't spoken up. "I suppose that's not out of the question…" he figured, frowning slightly in thought. After another moment, he shrugged. "It's nice to meet you. I'm Uchiha Sasuke," he introduced as he extended his hand, his voice amiable, though his eyes seemed perpetually unfriendly.

"I guess you already know my name," Kitsuchi answered, her hand taking his before releasing. "Do you know where we're going to stay for this reunion?"

Sasuke opened his mouth to respond, but at that moment, a loud male voice came yelling, "Sasuke-san! Sasuke-san! The Kazekage is here!"

Sasuke scowled in the direction that this voice came from. "Are you _quite_ sure you don't mean the _Ho_kage?"

"Yeah, I really mean that!" answered the brown-haired Chuunin who ran forward from the entrance to the compound—before he tripped over his own feet and landed on his face a few feet from Sasuke with an "Oof!" He lifted himself into a push-up position and determinedly explained, "Naruto-san's coming with him, too!"

"Well," Sasuke sighed, "Please escort them here."

"They're on their way," the Chuunin told him. Sasuke glared back. "I mean, well," he explained, "they were kinda impatient…"

"Hn," would be the best combination of English letters that could describe the noise Sasuke made in response as he brushed the nonexistent dust on his long-sleeved fishnet shirt and black pants.

Momentarily, four figures rounded the corner that the Chuunin previously flew around; three males, each with brown, red, or blond hair, and a female with her blonde hair drawn into four ponytails. The redhead had a structure with two definite sphere-like shapes strapped to his back; the brunet had two large scrolls, and the female had a giant fan on her wide belt. The redhead also held a black cat in his arms, which was probably the cause of a great deal of black fur shed on his pale hooded sweatshirt.

"Sasuke-kun!" the blond called cheerily. "You don't have any problems with Gaara-san being here, do you?"

Sasuke frowned. "I see no reason why I need him here, but I can't think of any reason to deny anything of the Kazekage."

The redhead nodded. "Thank you for allowing us to stay. Do you know where we'll be spending the night during our stay, or should we explore the town first?"

"Well," Sasuke answered, his eyes squinting as one eyebrow raised. "I'd imagine that you could find a fine hotel somewhere else—is there any particular reason why you've decided to be so associated with my family reunion?"

"Eheh," the blond chuckled without much certainty as he rubbed a hand behind his head. Sasuke turned his attention to him skeptically. "Well, you _said_ you wanted to extend the family—and, well, Gaara-san's a lot like a little brother to me, so…do you mind?"

Sasuke stared for a moment, then answered, "Honestly, I'd rather not. While I am honored to have the Kazekage at my reunion, I do appreciate privacy, and I'm sure he has much better things to be doing than…this."

"Aw, but Sasuke-san—" the blond whined.

"It's okay, Naruto-niisan," the redhead interrupted, his voice showing no emotion to speak of, though his eyes implied that he was holding something back. "I have some work to get done here. I'll just check in at a hotel." He turned to the blonde and the brunet who flanked him. "Come on, Temari-neesan, Kankuro-kun." He turned and left.

The blonde followed quickly. The brunet grumbled something about Naruto having a position but his own brother didn't, but did rapidly follow his apparent siblings as they left.

Throughout the conversation, Ren kept a steady glare at the redhead's black cat, who seemed more conscious of this and less apathetic about it than a cat should have been.

"Do you think there was something weird about that cat, Okaa-san?" she asked quietly.

Kitsuchi took a moment to realize that the thirteen-year-old was addressing her. "Oh. I don't think so. Cats are strange beings—I don't think there's _any_ standard for cat behavior."

"I've never known a cat like that," Ren argued perplexedly. "Out of Sayuri, Yuki, Yuzuki, Ayamu, Ryoichi, Sachiko, and Ryuunosuke, none of them seemed quite that intelligent. That cat was nothing like _any_ of them."

"Well, that's nice for you," Kitsuchi retorted.

Sasuke stared at them skeptically. "I thought you were her mother. Wouldn't you know about seven cats?"

"Hm? Oh!" Kitsuchi realized too late. "Um…her father…kind of…well, it was a young love, and he sued for custod—"

"It's a lie," Ren confessed coolly. "We were sent here to see if this thing was a trap or not."

"Ren!" Kitsuchi hissed. "Don't tell him that!"

"Well, what are we _supposed_ to do?" Ren asked. "Keep lying? For how long? Ojii-sama should be taking everyone over soon."

Sasuke watched this conversation with annoyed interest. "Is there anything else that anyone wants to jump on me?"

"Not yet," Ren answered honestly.

"_Such_ a comfort," Sasuke muttered sarcastically.

* * *

**A/n again:** Sasuke! AKA SasUKE or Sauce-gay. I don't even know how his parents found a name with so many humiliating possibilities.  
Anyway, to the OC owners: _I know none of you like Saucy. I know that none of you generall imagine them as being OKAY with the dude._ However, they HAVE to cooperate with him for plot. Trust me, if you're not sure why something happens, it's for plot. 

Crappy ending, yes. Sorry about that. I really didn't have much time to make it decent. I know I shouldn't let that be an excuse, but...yeah. This is actually a first--usually, I have the first chapter posted, then I have the second written, but by the time that's posted, I probably have...maybe three more chapters after that. Instead, I'm probably at least a week behind my original schedule and dragging.

So. Hope you enjoyed.

Oh--and I'm looking to try and arrange an Internet party-type thing with a Torture, Maim, Inflict Pain Upon, Hurt, Beat, and Possibly Even Rape Sasuke Oh and We Might Let Him Die at the End kinda theme. Anyone interested? I'm really quite open right now, but I'd love to look up a Naruto timeline and find a good, ironic date for the event. I suppose I also need a system to run it off of--a forum would work, but I'm not sure if FFN's will...not kill us for it. I have a feeling--nay, I'll MAKE SURE it's not child-appropriate. I already have ideas for my own contributations. :insert evil laugh here:

**Preview:**  
The remainder of Akatsuki arrives at the Uchiha complex. The chapter writes itself--the only question is if Kazekage's cat shows yet that it's a lot more special than even Ren predicted, and maybe we'll figure out that brunet Chuunin's name.  
(Expect it before the twentieth)


	3. Arrival

**A/n:** Oh gosh. I accidently wrote myself into eight pages. Oops. I broke my own record. But I now get to A/n and feel less guilty. And that's my favorite part of the job, and I haven't really done it in a while, so expect to have to scroll to get to the story.

Enaku...is confusing. So I put footnotes on his l33t :) it took me forever to even get the thing down. It's probably not such realistic l33t as it could be. But I think it gets the idea across. Except it's harder, when you write out someone spelling it out verbally. "Oh em gee dubbayu tee eff bee bee kiuu, are oh eff el em aiy oh, jay zero zero one five aich four en zero zero bee el oh el oh el oh el," is not only unconventional, but takes a full line to write out letters that take about a fifth of one.  
(by the way, that sample was "omgwtfbbq roflmao j00 15h 4 n00b", which would, in conventional English, roughly translate to  
"Holy profainities," I laughed, "you're so innexperienced.")  
Thankfully, the form of l33t that I've set Enaku to use isn't THAT advanced. En zero zero bee five (n00b5) like me couldn't keep up with it. Yeah, I won't brag about what I have here. If you can help me improve Enaku's speach while in leet mode, please tell me.  
Skullblade, feel special that your character gets footnotes.

This chapter was originally going to be much longer; however, it seemed to prefer to loop around the goal, maybe even spiral a few times, and THEN end. TT.TT such a pain...at least exams are over.

I should post something for the holiday(s). The twelve days of Christmas something. Maybe fears. Twelve Fears of Christmas. Less because of actual holiday fears and more because I was already writing some random drabbles about fears of Naruto characters that haven't been mentioned.  
Oh. And I generally hate holidays. The holiday itself doesn't usually suck too bad (except Thanksgiving and Valentine's), but preparing...yurgh. Yesterday we got a tree. We tried Home Depot first. They didn't have any. So we went to a grocery store. I didn't want to be there, so Mom put me in a cart. It was a pain. She kept leaning trees against it. This was in front of the store, so when I move to the other end of the cart to avoid getting my eye pine-needled out, the weight sends the cart moving, and the cart tries bringing me into the street. Mom caught me before I was pancake'd. But it wasn't very happy. I kept repeating, "This is the worst December Twentieth of my entire life." My dad told me that the one twelve years from now when I lose my splien will be worse. Hardy-har-har. And my parents sang the Christmas carols we played in band, and they kept calling me Mistletoe. For no reason. In the end, Mom decided we should get _two_ trees, which meant that they started getting into _my_ seat.  
This whole occassion might have been just a _little_ less annoying if my brother didn't have work and would have had to come with us. But he did, so he wasn't with us, and I had to go through all that _alone_.  
By the way, holiday preperation is also why this wasn't posted yesterday as I told you. Mom decided that now we don't have school, we are not allowed to kick back and take advantage of the time we could use to sleep in, but instead we have to spend the _whole time_ cleaning and whatnot. She took my laptop. The only reason I can post this is because I already posted most of it onto a document here, and she forgot that I can still use the desktop, and she's at work now. If I don't get my stuff done soon, though, I won't have the chance to write more, and I _really want to write more_. I barely thought about the story yesterday, and Mom spent the whole day trying to get me to move. Evidentally, I lose all energy when I don't write.

**Disclaimer:** Originality is lost! I, Zopponde, own only Ren and Haruka and Shikai who have yet appeared in the story! Enaku belongs to Skullblade, Katena belongs to daREALshikamaru, and Kitsuchi belongs to someone who seems to have gotten a username here which would be Kitsuchi-Rensawa-Pwns but if that's not true than the only means to contact her would be through her deviantART account which is fangirl-in-training! And all other characters are totally (p)owned by Masashi Kishimoto.

* * *

"So," Pein began, sitting on a large, flat rock. "We need a _plan_." 

"Tobi knows!" Tobi exclaimed, waving his hand above his hand.

" 'We walk into Konaha, meet Otouto, and go along with his plans for family fun,' right?" Pein guessed.

Tobi's hand fell. "Um…maybe…"

"No," Pein told his son-like figure. "Anybody _else_ have any ideas for plans?"

Nobody answered for about five minutes. Pein started to wonder if they forgot his question before Tobi raised his hand tentatively. "Um…Otou-sama?"

"What?" Pein asked, not without exasperation.

"Tobi thinks you have trust issues," the masked ninja stated plainly, his hands slowly fidgeting nervously. "Tobi knows that you're not really in a good position to trust everyone, but couldn't you just give Itachi-chan's little brother the benefit of the doubt, just this once?"

Pein frowned. "I'd rather not," he answered, faintly evasive but noticing that his current reasoning for denying it was pure stubbornness.

"He's Itachi-chan's little brother," Tobi went on. "He's just like Itachi-chan—you trust _Itachi-chan_, right?"

The way Itachi's next breath sounded like he was about to say something did not go unnoticed, but Pein sighed and told Tobi, "Fine. We'll go now rather than plan anything first."

As he turned to lead the way on toward Konahagakure, he was fairly aware that this suddenly sounded like a bad idea.

* * *

A brown-haired Chuunin yawned as he walked to his post by the front gates of Konahagakure. The light was only just starting to spread over the horizon, and already he'd tripped over his own feet more than he cared to count. At least he was nearly there— 

_Flop_. His face was in the tightly packed dirt of the road. Again.

He grumbled as he stood again and started grumbling. "Why me?" he groaned as he continued trudging to his destination. "First she starts throwing things—and she's supposed to be the best medic, _why_ can't she get the stupid rubber duck out? And why does she support this whole Uchiha thing? I don't see why _either_ of them were forgiven so easily, and does she seriously think Sasuke just wants to have tea with his brother? And of all the people, _I_ have to get assigned to this." He continued a stream of incoherent tones until his foot slipped again. This time, he landed on his rear end rather than his face.

"Argh," he moaned as he stood up again. "And then early morning gate duty," he went on to nobody in particular, too used to constant slipping to let it drag him down. "Stupid little girl, if she hadn't said that they were coming then someone _else_ would be responsible. Funny how they should assign a _Chuunin_ to deal with Aka—ahh!"

He tripped again, but the open toe of his shoe actually made contact with something other than the ground for once. He looked down at the culprit and saw the faint outline of a dark creature—a cat, it seemed.

The Chuunin stared at it for a moment, still sitting on the ground, then grinned. "Good morning, kitty."

The cat whipped around to face him, its face not seeming as friendly as the average house cat.

The brown-haired ninja reached over and picked up the cat, his arms around its ribcage. The cat seemed to tense instinctively as he held it close and cooed, "Awww, you're such a cute little kitty."

The black cat hissed offensively and began struggling to claw the poor Chuunin. It succeeded; the middle claw of the cat's forepaw punctured the cloth of the Chuunin's forehead protector and lodged into the forehead behind it.

"Ah!" the Chuunin yelped. "Ah! Ah! Ah!" He tried to remove the claw from his forehead by pulling the cat away from it, but it seemed that the further his arms went, the longer the cat was.

The cat's nearly-black eyes continued to glare at the Chuunin with what seemed to be victory. It began to purr as the Chuunin tried harder to pull its claw out of his head.

"AAAAARRRGHH!" the Chuunin screamed angrily. "Dubbayu tee eff! Three-vee-are-why-one aich-eight-five em-three-three-three-three-three-three exclamation point exclamation point exclamation point one exclamation point eleven one!" (1)

He made one more tug at the cat, whose claw lost its grip in his forehead and dragged the Chuunin's forehead protector off with some of his skin as the cat went flying. It managed to skid to a halt on its feet, where it arched its back and hissed standoffishly at the Chuunin, who was now panting but grinning.

"Dubbayu-zero-zero-seven exclamation point greater than dee!" he yelled, pointing at the cat. (2)

"Is someone over there?" a voice on the other side of the gate called.

"Finally," another voice added, a little more quietly. "We've been sitting out here all night."

"My ass hurts," a much younger male voice announced.

"Shikai-kun, please never repeat that word," a female voice chided.

"What, hurts?" the younger voice asked. "Don't I say it all the time?"

"No, Shikai-kun," the female voice answered. "The other one."

"…why not?"

"Can someone just open the bleeping door?" an older male voice called.

"Tobi has to go peeee," another whined.

"I'm hungry," a young female added.

"Aich-backslash-oh!" the Chuunin called in response. (3)

"What'd he say?" yet another voice on the other side of the huge gate wondered.

"…H.O?" the younger female voice wondered.

"Ho?" the younger male voice added.

The younger female gasped and asked excitedly, "Is Santa on the other side?"

"Santa Claus?" the younger male asked skeptically. "Why's he here and not at the North Pole?"

"You two seriously still believe that shit?" one of the older male voices wondered.

"Santa Claus," a whining voice called. "Could you pleeeeaaase open the door?"

The gate wasn't scheduled to open for another ten minutes; it would probably be about five before the rather large team that usually opened the gates came. The brown-haired Chuunin reached for the latch, however, and swung each door open with one hand. "El oh el!" he greeted to those on the other side as the doors flew outward.

Nobody greeted him. A little wind blew a few leaves past the gate, but the Chuunin could see no trace of any humanoid life.

Until something flickered, and ten adult figures wearing black-and-red cloaks appeared, accompanied by two seven-year-old children, stood in the clearing that the wide doors made with their daily motion.

* * *

Pein leered through the freshly opened doors gates into Konaha. "What took you so long?" he snapped. Having spent a night locked out of a place that he didn't quite want to go to in the first place trimmed his temper severely. 

"En-zero-zero-bee-five!" the brown-haired Chuunin who opened the door laughed. Ominously enough, he had a small wound on his forehead that was bleeding profusely, though Pein and the other present members of Akatsuki found no reason for worry; even if they had a reason to care about the man, they were well aware that the bleeding was only bad because it was on his head. (4)

"What's that supposed to mean?" Pein demanded. "Oh, never mind—just take us to the Uchiha residence, please."

"Kay-kay," the Chuunin chirped agreeingly. He turned around and began walking through the town. Pein followed, not missing the black cat that kept its distance from the Chuunin and hissed as he passed, and also that it seemed to follow the group despite its apparent dislike for the Chuunin.

The rest of Akatsuki, of course, followed Pein, though they seemed considerably less comfortable with the silence as Haruka trotted up to the Chuunin and asked smilingly, "What's your name, Mister Green Vest?"

"Kay-three-are-one three-en-four-kay-yuu," the Chuunin answered cryptically. (5)

Haruka stared at him. "Um…Mister Green Vest, are you going to stop talking funny?"

"El-oh-el-en-zero-zero-bee," the Chuunin laughed. "One four em tee three aich em four five seven three are zero eff tee three eich el three three seven el oh el oh el oh el oh el oh el oh el oh el oh el zee!" (6)

Haruka stopped in front of him and crossed her arms, pouting. "You'd _better_ stop talking funny or I'll tell you all about Cak!" Her motions caused the entire group to pause in their journey.

"You mean Pi?" Shikai corrected.

"That too!" Haruka agreed, her eyes never moving from the Chuunin who spoke in numbers.

"El oh el oh el zee one dee el yu vee two five seven zero pee," the Chuunin told her, his tone decrescendoing in exhaustion. (7)

Shikai giggled. "He said pee!"

"El oh el en zero are el why period," the Chuunin enforced, holding his hands in front of him in what may have been forfeit, "Pee el three four five three period. Em four kay three one seven five three zero pee." (8)

Haruka's brother giggled as she frowned childishly, took a deep breath, and told him loudly, "_Three point one four one five six three eight two nine seven three eight zero seven nine nine five four three one two eight—_!" (9)

"Nee-chaaan!" Shikai whined. "Stop acting smart! You're not!"

"Yeah I am!" Haruka whined back. "I bet _you_ don't—oh look, a kitty!" she cried when she noticed a black cat crossing the street behind Shikai. The cat's eyes widened in alarm, and it began sprinting for the nearest alleyway as Haruka trotted after the poor thing. When she rounded the corner, however, the brunette seven-year-old skidded to a halt and stared down the alley.

The sun wasn't high enough to allow light into the alleyway, but Haruka could basically make out, through the dim light, that there was a female figure at the end of it, who stood from a stoop when she saw Haruka and who had either a mutative genetic disorder or a very funny hat; her head's shape was hardly normal. The light also managed to illuminate the silhouette of a cat in the woman's arms, presumably the same cat that Haruka was chasing a moment ago.

Haruka bounced on the balls of her feet cheerily. "Missus Lady?" she asked childishly. "Is that your kitty?"

The woman walked out of the outcropping of road. "Why, yes, it is," the woman seemed to purr, as the light showed her cranial deformity more clearly; her long, nearly straight black hair created a silhouette that was broken by a pair of similarly colored…cat ears?

_Poof_. Itachi ran her through with a kunai before anybody could see him move. Smoke appeared in the woman's stead, and the black cat appeared unharmed as it dropped nimbly onto a pile of sand that probably hadn't been there a moment ago, carving a trail of dust through the air as it retreated somewhat into the alcove, where it turned and hissed at Itachi with its back arched.

Haruka yelped. "Nii-saaan, what was _that_ for?" she whined.

"Sand clone," was all Itachi seemed in the mood to mutter.

"A sand clone?" Pein asked bemusedly. "Haven't seen one of those in a while…"

"_Sand_?" Sasori wondered. "But…aren't we in Konaha? They don't generally know that technique, do they?" He frowned.

"She had a Suna forehead protector," Itachi stated seriously. "She'd be one to know." He glared down the alley at the cat. The cat glared back as it continued to hiss.

Haruka dropped to perch on the balls of her feet and extended one hand. "Here, kitty, kitty…"

The cat kept hissing at her, but as Haruka cooed to it, it seemed to slowly find a reason to approach her and happily accept that the brunette girl was rubbing its head affectionately. "Awwww, you're such a cute little kitty…"

"Would everyone sto—…"

"Did someone say something?" Pein wondered. He looked at Haruka--he could have _sworn_ the voice came from her or somewhere quite close to her...

"What?" Haruka asked innocently, now hugging the cat to her chest. "I didn't say anything."

Pein frowned. "Maybe I was imagining things…" He shrugged. "Could we keep going now?"

The strange Chuunin agreed and led the way further into the village. Nobody else engaged in conversation, though Haruka's high-pitched cooing to the cat added a tension. For about ten minutes, the band continued walking through the village, earning stares of various emotions—hate, resentment, fear, confusion, bewilderment, panic, etc.—from the few villagers who left their homes this early. At the end of these ten minutes, the Chuunin tripped on something and landed face-first on the pavement.

"Finally!" he sighed as he stood up. "I was wondering it that'd _ever_ wear off!" He slouched in relaxation. "It's never lasted that long before. I wonder if something's wrong with me." He frowned speculatively. "Maybe it's got something to do with the time of day or something…" He shrugged and kept walking through the village, seeming to not have noticed anything. The rest of the party stared after him, made hesitant by his increasingly abnormal character design, but soon continued. Haruka was quick to repeat events, jogging ahead and turning around to ask him, "Mister Weird Person with a Green Vest, what's your real name?"

The cat, by now, seemed rather disgruntled by Haruka's method of holding it, and the Chuunin told her instead, "I might tell you if you put that cat down. It's dangerous." His pace slowed, and then stopped. He reached at his forehead, which was currently bare and dripping blood from the wound which he seemed to have only just noticed, then retracted his hand and slapped his forehead. "Shit! I forgot my forehead protector!" He whipped around, grumbling, "Stupid cat, ripping out my…um…" He seemed to only now realize that nearly the whole of Akatsuki was following him. "Akatsuki!" he cried, pointing at them alarmingly. An expression of comprehension dawned on his face. "Oh, right…never mind," he apologized. "Um…well, I need to go get my forehead protector. Do you guys know where you're going?"

Itachi stepped forward.

"Oh, I guess you would…" the Chuunin muttered before he shrugged and raised his voice. "Well, I'll meet you guys at the Uchiha compound." He sighed. "Please make sure to make it perfectly clear that it's the cat's fault that I'm not there right now." He passed by the Akatsuki and waved over his shoulder—his hand slapped himself in the face, and he cursed but continued walking until he tripped, stood, and continued in a similar manner.

"Well," Pein began, faintly bemused by the situation. "Lead the way, Itachi-kun."

Itachi took three steps and stopped to turn around. He stood perfectly still at this point, and a brief silence stretched before anybody reacted.

"Itachi-san," Deidara whined, "you haven't forgotten where it is, have you?"

"No, I haven't," Itachi answered coolly. He turned to face the gates that he stopped next to. Painted largely on either door, as well as about half as tall on either side of the entrance, was what seemed to be a more-than-half-moon on a stick with the shadow illustrated in red. One of the doors was open.

"What, we're there already?" Deidara asked, amazed. "I mean…_already_?"

Itachi tilted his head upwards; a banner hung just above the door, reading, "Welcome Home, Uchiha Itachi! We've been waiting for you!"

"… 'we'?" Sasori wondered, squinting at the sign. "Isn't there only one le—"

"Sasuke-kun?" a female voice asked innocently from within the gates.

Itachi looked directly within the gate and squinted. "You look a little familiar…have I met you before?"

The same voice gasped. "Oh, you're Itachi! Um…h-…w-where's Enaku-san?"

"Who would that be?" Itachi asked politely.

"…you haven't killed anyone, have you?" the woman wondered, her voice seeming somehow despairing.

"Only a sand clone," Itachi told her coolly.

The woman inside the gates sighed. "Oka…wait, a _sand_ clone?"

"Yes, a _sand_ clone," Itachi informed dryly. "Has everyone gone deaf? She had a Sunagakure forehead protector. She had a cat—the very same cat who made our former escort have to go back for his forehead protector."

"…oh," the apparently Uchiha woman muttered. "Well…I'll go tell Sasuke-kun that you're here!" Rapid footsteps took her away from the gates with rude haste.

Itachi turned to the rest of Akatsuki with a look of hopeless pleading. Pein understood the question in his eyes, and answered for him in a sigh. "I don't want to go either, but you know that Tobi would never let us sleep until we went."

Itachi sighed. "At least that works as a threat to you. He never lets _me_ sleep anyway."

Tobi, upon Itachi saying this, seemed to become flustered, and began fidgeting with his hands. "Itachi-chan—do you really think that Otou-sama wants to hear about—you know—_that_?"

Itachi hesitated as he mulled it over. "I suppose not…"

Sure enough, Pein felt a sudden urge to scrub his ears out. Not that he specifically disapproved of his son's choice about Itachi, but he still doubted he needed such details. No, he didn't.

"Come on," Itachi prompted, breaking Pein out of his thoughts. "We'll draw a lot of attention if we keep standing out here." He squinted uncomfortably. "That could only be a bad thing."

"Agreed," Pein agreed, stepping forward. Itachi walking into the complex, and the rest of Akatsuki, as well as Shikai and Haruka, who still clutched that poor black cat to her chest.

The Uchiha compound was a very…well, the only resident seemed rather…proud of his status. Every single window was shuttered to indicate that nobody lived there anymore, and every single shutter was painted with the same symbol as on and beside the doors leading into the outdoor complex. The shutters were originally plain black. Haruka smiled when she realized that the colors were exactly the same as the rest of her family's; their color scheme fit perfectly. No unfashionablity for _her_ family, no sirree.

"Nii-san," a male voice addressed, demanding all attention. Before them all stood a man who looked astoundingly like Itachi; the most noticeable difference was that the newcomer's face was unlined, and his hair, instead of being long enough for a ponytail, was cropped short enough to stick up behind his head in a shape that wasn't quite unlike the rear end of some form of commonly devoured bird.

Itachi frowned at his nearly-clone. "Otouto. Why did you leave your hair like that?"

The young man twitched. "Like yours is so much better—you look like a girl."

"He doesn't!" Tobi disagreed. "He's much sexier than a girl!" The masked nin put an arm around Itachi in a conspicuously affectionate way.

Itachi and his apparent younger brother twitched at the same time. "Tobi-san," Itachi hissed to silence the masked ninja.

"You…you're…" the younger Uchiha stammered. "Is that…when did…why…what's so…" (one more footnote)

"Yes, Otouto, I do," Itachi sighed. "Yes, Otouto, I am. No, Otouto, that's _not_ why I did it. A few years ago, Otouto; I suppose I forgot that I'd have to tell you. I did it, Otouto, because that's how I roll. He's special, Otouto, because I say he is."

The younger Uchiha glared at Itachi. The lower lid of one dark eye twitched more rapidly than the other; the other twitched more jerkily than the first. "Why are—you always—stop showing off, Nii-san!" the junior Uchiha whined, pointing a finger and pouting his lips.

Itachi sighed. "Yet another reason why we should have stayed at home," he muttered to Tobi.

"Otou-sama!" a familiar female voice called; behind the second Uchiha, Ren charged forward. "Otou-chan! You're here!"

Itachi smirked slightly as his daughter approached; his younger brother watched in awe as Itachi seemed to brace himself for a high-impact hug. At the last second, however, Ren leapt into the air and brought her foot down exactly where Itachi's forehead was—or had been before he slid sideways and took Tobi's waist. The long-haired Uchiha spun, and as Ren fell, Tobi's shin made an impact with her foot, tilting her precariously until she threw a hand onto Tobi's head. With this leverage, she boosted herself over her less mature father and brought a fist through Itachi's face.

A flock of black birds took flight from Itachi's previous position as Ren fell through where her father once stood. She tumbled through the air for a few seconds, her trajectory having her set to land hard on her back, but before she could crash to the ground, an arm caught her back. Knowing who caught her, Ren proceeded to grasp that arm and swing the attached body around. It proved to be a shadow clone when Itachi's latest image made a loud popping noise and burst into smoke upon contact with Tobi, who seemed to have just been getting reoriented when he was knocked over.

Ren glanced around her, looking for her adversary and father; she couldn't find him. She hissed a frustrated breath and squeezed her eyes shut for a split second; they changed from dull gray to red in that moment. She continued her stationary search.

Tobi lay on the ground, mask seeming cracked on the pavement. "Owww…Tobi is very dizzy…"

Ren's eyes widened suddenly, and she whipped around to look to Tobi. She rushed to his side, crying, "Otou-chan!" Her hands fluttered over him, until Itachi appeared behind her. At that point, she ceased her motions for a moment, brought her hands into a hand seal, and muttered something before whirling to clash a kunai against the one that her father wielded against her, locking eyes with her current opponent in doing so.

The Uchihas remained stationary. A wind blew, sending hair into disarray, but they remained locked in position until Ren sighed and sat down. "I'm sorry, Otou-sama," she muttered, hanging her head shamefully. "I should have been better."

"You did the right thing," Itachi told her coolly. "If I'd been anyone else, your priorities would have been straight."

Pein cleared his throat, and Itachi and Ren turned to face him. "Are you forgetting something that we should be getting done with?" he asked dryly. "Maybe…introductions?"

"It won't matter," Itachi told him exasperatedly. "Otouto probably won't notice anyone but me. He has a bit of tunnel vision. He'll never notice any of you unless you attack him directly."

Meanwhile, Pein noticed that Itachi's younger brother, standing behind him, pouted at something a few feet away from Itachi. Which happened to be Haruka and "her" cat. This seemed to bewilder and confuse the younger Uchiha, and as he looked around Itachi, he seemed to realize the number of people who accompanied his older brother.

"Enaku!" the waterfowl-haired Uchiha called at Akatsuki. "Go tell Naruto-niisan that I retract my previous statement."

"What?" Everyone turned around to see the same brown-haired ninja from before entering. He now had a bloodied bandage wrapped around his head under his Konaha forehead protector. "But I just got ba—"

"Tell him I'll take him out for ramen," the younger Uchiha retorted, attracting everyone's attention for that moment.

"But that's incentive for _him_, not _me_," the Chuunin's whine had the members and children of Akatsuki swiveling their heads to watch each speaker.

"Look," the Konaha Uchiha nearly shouted with rage, "If you don't do this, you're off the mission, which means you get to go to _Tsunade_ and get a new one!"

The Chuunin's shiver was visible, and it was quite noticeable when he clutched an area of the stomach that nearly everyone guessed was a kidney. "Yes sir, right away, sir!" he agreed hastily as he turned and ran out of the compound.

All eyes gradually turned to the younger Uchiha again. Hidan was the first to speak. "Now what?"

The black-haired ninja who seemed especially reluctant to not be realized as one with Uchiha heritage smirked. "Now," he told them all coolly. "I suppose now would be a good time to mention that my name is Uchiha Sasuke. Welcome to my humble adobe."

Shikai giggled. "He said a-DOPE."

* * *

**A/n:** What? He's seven years old! He's going to be immature and misinterpret things a bunch! 

Concerning the OCs: I really am NOT confident with being accurate on Enaku, but I probably wouldn't rewrite it even if it was one sentance. Kitsuchi didn't show up once (she was SUPPOSED to come running around the corner, but the UCHIHAS had to make a scene and make it awkward for her to come running :glares at Uchihas:). The only OC owner that I think shouldn't hate me too much today would be what'sherface Katena's...creator, cos Katena makes a physical humanoid appearence...as a sand clone...which quickly gets run through...and I probably should have researched sand clones a little more at least used the Japanese term or described the action of their death a little better...yeah, never mind.

**Notes on leet (and one on unfinished sentances):**  
**(sample)** _"Literal translation"_ Basic description of what that means.  
**(1)** _"wtf, 3vry1 h85 m333333!!!1!eleven1" _Oh dear, everyone hates meeeee (various expressions of loud volume)  
**(2)** _"w007:a smiley that includes a symbol that FFN does not appear to endorse:"_ Woot, which can mean "We Owned the Other Team." (I don't remember why I know this, but I do.)  
**(3)** _"h/o"_ Hold on. (I was going to have, upon it being decided to be "Ho," have someone think he meant "Hoe," and that would probably be Hidan, who would proceed to curse at whoever "called him that." But the children interpreted it innocently.)  
**(4)** _"n00b5"_ Newbs, which is directed at how _they_ couldn't open the gate but _he _could.  
**(5)** _"k3r1 3n4ku"_ Keri Enaku. This is the character's name.  
**(6)** "_lol n00b 1 4m t3h m4573r 0f t3h l337 lololololololololz"_ Haha idiot I'm the master of the leet hahahahahahahahahahaha (by the way, I do not endorse the useage of saying literally, "lawlawlawlawlawlawlawlawlawlawlawl", as that gets quite annoying quite quickly, and someone probably _will_ slap you upside the head.)  
**(7)** _"lololz 1d luv 2 570p"_ Hahaha, I'd love to stop. (he got stuck in leet mode. Let's point and laugh at his misfortune.)  
**(8)** _"lol n0 rly. pl3453. m4k3 17 570p"_ Haha no really. Please. Make it stop.  
**(9)** _"3.14156382938079954128"_ This is the first five digits of pi followed by several random numbers that leapt to mind, because Haruka doesn't _actually_ know the first twenty-one digits of pi yet.  
**(final footnote)** To fully comprehend Itachi's answers, it may help to know what Sasuke would have asked if he finished those sentances: "You like men?" "You're gay?" "Is that why you killed everyone?" "When did this happen?" "Why did you decide this?" "What's so special about _him_?" (yes, the first few were quite blunt. That's why they were discarded so quickly.)

**Rant: Early Bird Gets the Worm:**  
_Or, in this case, the right to rename characters._  
Yeah, this will probably sound concieted on some level or another, but I notice how, when Kai's actual name was released, everyone's like, "Yeah, whatever, leave her as Kai and make it clear that you didn't know at the time."  
I started writing this story...actually, it was about the first thing I did after reading the chapter where Pein's name (or...title, I suppose) was announced.  
My greatest regret about this story is that I did it _after_ reading the chapter. If I'd been just a few days earlier, I could have jumped on it and named Pein whatever the hell I wanted to, and I could still use the whole "I didn't know better" excuse.  
Then...dude...his name would be Nemo.  
I KNOW all of you are going to go "WTF You wanted to name him after the _fish_?" Which is not the case (though I will not deny how funny that would be). I'm not entirely certain as to the origins, but Nemo seems to be what you call someone who has no name (or something?). Like this dude that Nii-san sits with at lunch and I sat with for a while, and he was known just as Nemo, and he was a pretty violent guy but Nii-san tried to get him to take me to Homecoming anyway...I think I'll shut up about that now.  
I'd quote Nightwish a bunch more, too. "Oh, how I wish/For soothing rain/All I wish is to dream again./Once and for all/And all for once/Nemo my name forevermore..." or something.  
Meanwhile, anyone who knew that Kai actually apparently means Shellfish in Japanese (the thought was slightly awkward for me) and think of Nemo as the little clownfish...are allowed to have disturbing thoughts about how Haruka and Shikai came around. :)  
Yeah, like you needed that mental image, I'm sure. But it's better than a shark and a weasel, right? (at least they live in the same habitat)

**Preview:**  
Wouldn't you be overwhelmed if you expect your brother and get half your clan in numbers? Yeah, I thought so. Sasuke feels the same, but _he_ has reinforcements to even the odds.  
(pester me with PMs if it's not up by Christmas Eve.)


	4. Introductions

**A/n:** Another eight-pager. Stupid Akatsuki, being so big. Stupid Sasuke, being intimidated and calling _every contact he's ever known_ (that's an exageration) to make it look like he's also been "extending the family" or whatever. Stupid Enaku, being all clumsy and making me take a full page to describe his clumsiness. Stupid Misaki, being all cute and fangirly.  
Oh, wait. I like Enaku. Cos Enaku is unique and awesome.  
...and Misaki is my own character...  
...and I _really_ like Akatsuki...  
Great! Now _all_ the blame can go to Sasuke! _EVERYBODY WINS!_

Misaki is a recycled OC. Which means she showed up in a previous fanfiction, and has been reincarnated to better fit _this_ story.  
Actually, she wasn't reincarnated. She was just tweaked a little. If anyone's curious, the story from which she was tweaked is What I Regret. (By the way, if you want to make my Christmas even happier than it probably will be already, the main thing I want for Christmas is review(s) on that story.) I don't think I've posted enough of the story for her to have shown up yet, though...  
Oh, Misaki. Another thing about her appearing: I may or may not stop complaining about Ren being Mary-Sue. Because Misaki is Mary-Sue-_er_ (probably). I ran her through this "How Mary-Sue is Your Character" quiz-type-thing and she scored 97.  
The kill-it-dead-or-seriously-rethink-it point was 50.  
I personally like to think that she's so Mary-Sue she's not, because the balances are obscure ones that weren't listed on the quiz. However, that's _probably_ denial.  
Anyway, that's under entirely different circumstances, where she's actually a few years older than Itachi, so...yuh.  
But I'm heavily considering inserting a side-plot including Original Naruto Misaki (who was reincarnater from Original Original Misaki.) Which I think would be really really funny, because I'm already plotting it.

And I think I might want to warn you; Itachi gets pretty out of character. For the humor. Hope you guys weren't hoping for anything too wonderfully perfect of Kishimoto-level plot.  
Which reminds me that I haven't been reading the manga lately...

**On OCs:**  
They _finally_ get names _actually mentioned and clearly stated to be theirs!_ Egads!

**Disclaimer:**  
Shikai, Haruka, Ren, Moe, Tsubasa, Misaki (c) Zopponde  
_That Chuunin_, a.k.a. Enaku (c) Skullblade  
Katena (c) daREALshikamaru  
Kitsuchi (c) fangirl-in-training on deviantART and probably Kitsuchi-Rensawa-Pwns here, but I haven't yet checked with her and really should do that soon...  
Everyone else (c) Masashi Kishimoto

* * *

Shikai looked around him in awe. The room was huge—probably bigger than all of his house in the woods! And it was just the one room in the one building of this place that this Sasuke person lived in! Shikai knew for sure now that he wanted to be _just_ like Sasuke when he grew up, and he'd eat at this really long table, and invite a bunch of people over every day and they'd all eat at that really long table, and all of his father's group would be lined up on that one side just like now and there would be all of his really awesome friends from back when he was ANBU, but he _wouldn't_ be ANBU, because he'd be _better_ than ANBU! 

"Shikai-kun," his blue-haired mother whispered anxiously, "Stop fidgeting. It's rude."

"I'm not fidgeting!" Shikai denied in a loud whisper.

"Stop squirming," the woman rephrased, her mouth arcing downwards. He grinned; it was a game they played often.

"I'm not squirming!" Shikai repeated.

His mother sighed. "This is no time for games. We're making an impression—I suppose we should have taken you out more so you would know," she added, sending a slightly superior glance to Shikai's father, "but if you're going to listen to me at all, you're going to listen to me today."

"What should I do, then?" Shikai asked mischievously.

"Tell me what you're doing," she ordered.

"Can't do," Shikai denied playfully.

"Stop worming!" Haruka suggested from across her mother and father.

"Haruka-neechan!" Shikai protested loudly. All eyes turned to him, and both parents were quick to start shushing, but he ignored them all. "You're not allowed to play!"

"But Okaa-san _just said_ to tell you to listen to her!" Haruka argued, no longer keeping her voice down. "And that's what you _should_ be doing, but you're not! So if you won't listen to Okaa-san, then I'm going to play!"

"That doesn't prove your point at all!" a lavender-haired girl of Shikai and Haruka's age sitting across from Shikai argued back. "You're just looking for excuses!"

"Misaki-chan!" the blond-haired man sitting next to her hissed. "Let Sasuke-ojisan introduce us before you start talking to them, okay?"

"But Sasuke-ojisan's taking too long!" the long-haired girl protested.

"Just be patient, Misaki-chan," the blond told her soothingly.

Just then, Sasuke, sitting at the head of the table with Itachi, called, "Now that everybody's here, we should begin introductions." He turned to his older brother. "Nii-san, would you be so kind as to start with your side?"

"Is there anything wrong with starting with yours?" Itachi asked coolly.

"Only that the guests should be known before the hosts," Sasuke answered with a tone that makes the term "freezer burn" come to mind.

"But it would be rather difficult then, wouldn't it?" Itachi pointed out nonchalantly. "The guests would have no idea who the hosts are. If somebody found it a pressing matter such as to use the bathroom, how would they address the hosts to find out where it is?"

Sasuke opened his mouth, closed it, scratched his nose, looked at the plate in front of him, looked at the ceiling, opened his mouth, looked at the back of the dining hall, closed his mouth, blinked, frowned, opened his mouth, and finally admitted, "Fine. My side of the family comes first." He looked to his side, where a girl with long pink hair sat with a toddler-aged girl of the same hair color sitting in her lap. Her bright green eyes seemed faintly suspicious but she seemed to be determined to make the best of things. She noticed Sasuke's attention and beamed at him for nearly a full minute, as Sasuke's cool grin at her gradually turned to a hateful glare.

"Oh, you want _me_ to start," she finally deduced. Sasuke nodded with a psychotic expression. "Oh. Well, I am…" She smiled widely. "_Uchiha_ Sakura." She hesitated, seeming to wonder what to do next, before she indicated the girl and announced, "This is Moe-chan. Say hi, Moe-chan!"

"H-haai," the girl stammered, wide-eyed in the most intimidated way as she stared at Ren, who grinned wolfishly.

"And this is Tsubasa-kun," Sakura added, gesturing to the utterly bald three-year-old boy sitting next to her.

"Okaa-chan," Tsubasa whined pulling down the tall collar that Sakura and Moe also wore, "Mai shets too haad fowa bweaving."

"I'm sorry?" Sakura asked, frowning and leaning closer to Tsubasa.

"He's having difficulty breathing because of his shirt," Kisame provided from Shikai's right.

Sakura looked at him skeptically, then began to turn back to Tsubasa before she did a double take. She stared at him, seeming rather intimidated by his appearance. She continued to stare until Kisame sighed irritably and she blinked herself out of it. "Oh—ah—um…I'm sorry, it's just…h-how would _you_ know…what my son's saying…yeah?" The question was tacked into the end of the last word and nowhere else.

Kisame shook his head exasperatedly. "Isn't it supposed to be that only really random people can understand a little kid like that?"

Sakura seemed to need a moment to mull it over. "Yeah…I guess so…" She seemed willing to leave it at that (probably to avoid talking to Kisame any more), and turned to the person after Tsubasa, a child of Haruka and Shikai's approximate age and short faded yellow hair that most certainly did seem masculine, though there was definitely quite a bit of uncertainty over this.

"I," the blond declared with a voice that may have been masculine, or may have been feminine, but it most certainly held a determined air, "am Uzumaki Ayumu."

Common knowledge taught everyone that Ayumu was a masculine name, thus clarifying the child's gender as he turned to the woman on his left, her nearly-black purple hair held up in a tight bun that was surely a pain to set up.

"A-I'm Hi—Hy-H—Uzumaki Hinata," she finished, sounding ashamed of herself as she blushed and seemed to try drawing her head into the hooded sweatshirt that she wore. "Ah—um…Naruto-kun…" she whispered, nearly inaudibly. "Your turn."

The spike-headed blond on her left grinned. Odd black marks not unlike whiskers ran across his cheeks. "I am Uzumaki Naruto! Don't forget it!" he nearly shouted, waving his arms for no obvious purpose other than to catch attention as if he didn't already have. Fortunately for his left-hand neighbor, she was short with youth, and thus out of the line of danger of this action, but Hinata was not so lucky, and his elbow made contact with her forehead. She squeaked—strangely, _not_ for lack of a better word—and Naruto gasped and turned to her worriedly. "Hinata-chan, are you okay?"

"Naruto-san!" a familiar male voice chided as the brunet who associated with it seemed to spontaneously generate behind Naruto and Hinata. "You should treat Hinata-sama better than that!"

Naruto seemed exasperated. "Funny how _you_ should be the one telling me to treat her better…"

"I treat her _fine_!" the recurring brown-haired Chuunin argued, hands on hips as he leaned in on Naruto, who leered back with one arm resting on the back of his chair. "_I_ don't smack her in the head every time I introduce myself to people!"

"And _I_ don't stalk her!" Naruto argued back.

"You would if you weren't _married_ to her!" the Chuunin scoffed.

Sasuke sighed. "Enaku, shouldn't you be in the kitchens?"

The brunet's head swiveled to face Sasuke. This seemed to affect his balance slightly, but he retorted to Sasuke anyway, "Well, they said they don't _need_ me, they said, even though the eggs _clearly_ needed to be beat and the window should have been opened, and when you're all having such a wonderful—wagh!" His answer was cut short by a cry of alarm as he seemed to finally notice his offset of balance and fell over Naruto.

"Ack!" Naruto yelped as the Chuunin pushed him into the table, the chair fell sideways, and Naruto's head landed on the plate that was associated with the lavender-haired girl who sat next to him before she suddenly was nowhere to be found. Naruto's hands wound up unevenly above his head, and one of the Chuunin's arms lay across his chest. Unfortunately for the both of them, but the brunet especially, the Chuunin's face seemed to have wound up pressed against the general area of Naruto's stomach.

Overall, the position was very…interesting.

"_Awwww_," Haruka sighed.

Shikai, who had instinctively stood up in the commotion, now faced Haruka with the fury of any animal made violent through fear. "Nee-chan! What are you _awwwww_-ing this time!"

"Because love is really," Haruka answered, smiling blissfully before sighing distantly, "_awwwwww_-ful."

"Yeah," Shikai retorted, facing Naruto and the Chuunin again, "well," he added, turning back to Haruka, "_that_," he continued, eyes flickering back to the scene across the table, "is just," eyes back to Haruka, "really," he nearly finished with another glance at Naruto, "_gross!_" he finished, his alarmed gaze remaining on his sister. "You're right!—love is _awful!_"

"Not awful," Haruka corrected. She took a relaxed breath to fully sigh, "_Awwwww_…ful."

Throughout this conversation, the pale-skinned redhead who sat two seats to Hinata's left stared at the position with widened eyes until Naruto mustered the courage to clear his throat and tell the Chuunin, "So, _Keri_-san, is 'wagh' all you could say? No…_confessions_ before this?" His voice dripped with restrained anger that had clear origins in embarrassment.

The Chuunin looked up at Naruto with a clearly distressed expression. "Well…the things about _wagh_ is…it's…you know…a war cry." Naruto obviously did not believe him. "_Wagh!_" the Chuunin repeated, lunging to make an action not unlike strangling the blond but with a definitely half-or-less-hearted determination. Hinata gasped, realizing too late that the action was but a joke. She laughed nervously when everybody looked at her.

Itachi, meanwhile, sat at the head of the table, squinting tiredly at the scene. He couldn't quite say that there was anything that he appreciated whatsoever about the situation. He'd rather that this Naruto kid—and the strange thing was, the name seemed _so_ familiar, and it seemed _so_ pathetic that he _couldn't remember_—hadn't been so loud and hadn't attracted _that Chuunin_, in a very stop-taking-it-the-wrong-way-you-pervert manner, and that they hadn't wound up making this commotion. It would be nice if they could just go on with the next person, get introductions over with, do all the nice friendly family cheerful whatever-it-is-that-Sasuke-had-in-store, and go home as though none of it had happened. And he _did_ mean **_none_** of it had happened. Why couldn't they just introduce the little girl who sat on Naruto's…wait, where did she go? Oh, never mind. She probably was just a cardboard cut-out or something so Sasuke seemed to have a bigger "family," and the cardboard was probably knocked down in _that Chuunin_'s latest act of clumsiness.

His spiteful thoughts were interrupted as he felt something warm close around his ankle. He looked down to see the cause, and found the very same pale-eyed, lavender-haired girl who used to sit next to Naruto was now clinging to Itachi's lower leg. She smiled up at him cheerfully. "Will you be my _boyfriend_?" she asked, her voice rich with childish misconceptions.

Itachi glared at her. "Sorry, little girl," he nearly whispered, "I'm gay."

"What's that mean?" the girl wondered.

Sasuke watched this scene and decided this was the best time to chuckle unnaturally, probably thinking otherwise of the tone, and lie for Itachi's inconvenience. "Why, Misaki-hime," Sasuke flattered with no shame that Itachi would consider to exist, "it means that nobody would deny such a beautiful princess as you." He smiled with obvious dishonesty at Itachi. "Not even Itachi-kun. _Especially_ not Itachi-kun." His grin returned to the girl (Misaki, did he say her name was?). "Of course he'll be your boyfriend."

The girl smiled widely and genuinely while Itachi looked to Tobi for condolence. Tobi, of course, had a mask, and thus nobody would ever be able to read his expressions, but he seemed to stare at Itachi a bit longer than may have been necessary and stood up, shoulders slouching, and walked some length down the table, followed momentarily by Ren. He stopped behind Sasori and muttered something that seemed to make the Akatsuki-dedicated side of the table slide down a seat, so he and Ren sat there.

Itachi sighed. It wasn't that the situation wasn't unfortunate earlier, but it was even more unfortunate under this light.

"This light" was, specifically, the fact that he had a seven-year-old who hadn't yet realized how strange their age difference was. Tobi seemed to think that he was serious about this, and seemed to decide it best to take Ren away. It was also the clarification that Sasuke was trying to inconvenience Itachi in every way possible. And it added the fact that Haruka now sat next to him at the table. It was hard to tell which factor of that was worst.

Naruto _humph_ed to regain attention from the Akatsuki side of the table. _That Chuunin_ was no longer topping him, but was now hovering over Hinata, seeming to try to take one of the sticks that held her bun in place without making the hairstyle fall. "Can we just go on like none of this ever happened?" Naruto whined.

"Of course," Sasuke agreed.

Naruto nodded, seeming to not yet have noticed that the seat on his left was no longer occupied. A moment later, he seemed to realize that, indeed, the next person in line was not there, and then he stood up abruptly, yelping, "Misaki-chan! Ah! Where'd Misaki-chan go?" He promptly jogged around the table, repeating, "Misaki-chan! Misaki-chan! Where'd you go, Misaki-chan? Come out, Misaki-chan! Misaki-chan!"

Yes, the child's name was most definitely Misaki.

"She's right here, Naruto-niisan," Sasuke provided.

Naruto completely disappeared and reappeared behind Sasuke, and stared under the table at the little girl with the unnatural hair color. He breathed a sigh of relief. "Misaki-chan, what are you doing down there?"

"I'm saying hi to my boyfriend," Misaki squealed. Itachi shivered.

Naruto's mouth opened and closed several times before he asked, "Misaki-chan, _who_ is your boyfriend?"

"Itachi-kun," Misaki giggled.

"No," Naruto refused, glancing at Itachi with very obvious nervous panic. Was that a drop of sweat rolling down his cheek? "You're too young for a boyfriend—not until you're—uh—graduated from the Academy." Nearly every pause was accompanied with another anxious glance. Itachi, by now, was most definitely wondering what the blond was so afraid of, and also why his name was _so_ familiar.

"Otou-san," Misaki whined, "you didn't say that before!"

"Well," Naruto hesitated. Where was the sake? Itachi suddenly wanted to take a sip of alcohol every time the blond looked at him like that. Being drunk throughout this thing really would be useful. Oh well. He could just drink the water until someone offered him something less…grounding. "I didn't realize that you'd"—_slurp_—"you know"—_slurp_—"take an interest in such a"—_slurp_—"well…" _slurp_ "…_abnormal_…person"—_slurp_—"at such a young age…" _Slurp_. "Could you please stop doing that?" Itachi nearly drained the glass as Naruto stared at him edgily. It took him a moment to realize that the blond was speaking of Itachi's little game.

"Oh," Itachi muttered in response. He racked his mind for a good reason to not let his game be ended. "Well, you see…I can't," he lied, hoping it wasn't too obvious but careful to keep the same level of coolness that he always used in his voice. "Because if I don't drink water…I'll get a major headache." Kisame said that happened to him sometimes, right? "And I don't think that you'd want me to get a headache. I can get quite…_touchy_ when I have a headache."

"Okay," Naruto agreed quickly and turned back to Misaki…who _was_ clinging to Itachi's leg…_slurp_. "Come on, please come back to"—_slurp­_—"our side of the table."

"But Otou-saaaan," Misaki whined. "I wanna stay here with Itachi-kun, because I _love_ him and he _love_s me!"

"Misaki-chan," Naruto scolded, glancing at Itachi and making him take another sip from his nearly empty glass of water. "You should come and sit with your mother and Ayumu-san." _Slurp_. There was more noise from the straw this time than before. Itachi's glass of water had only a few mouthfuls left. Additionally, the point he made regarding guests using the restroom was becoming a reality rather than a potential scenario.

"But I don't wanna!" Misaki protested, hugging Itachi's leg closer. At this rate, it would have to be amputated when it lost all circulation.

Itachi took a drink of water, more so because it was becoming a habit than because Naruto looked at him again, but the water seemed to be gone, as the satisfying _slurp_ was replaced with a very unprintable sound that could quite reasonably be compared to a garbage disposal.

"Enaku-kun," Sasuke called, seeming to cause the toppling of the chair that Naruto once occupied. _That Chuunin_ stood abruptly from behind it, seeming rather flustered.

"What is it, Sasuke-san?" _that Chuunin_ asked obediently.

"…never mind," Sasuke decided. "I suppose it would be a hazard to nearly everybody to let _you_ carry _glass_…"

_That Chuunin_ crossed his arms. "I'd be able to do it if my doctor hadn't said that I shouldn't go el-three-three-seven for a while after that ten-minute burst."

"Nonetheless," Sasuke added, waving his hand dismissively as he turned to Naruto. "Naruto-niisan, would it trouble you too much to retrieve another glass of water for my dear brother?"

Naruto stared at Itachi for a moment, making him instinctively attempt to gain more water through the straw and fail. "E-excuse me," Naruto muttered, reaching for Itachi's glass. Itachi passed it to the blond, who took it somewhere where he really didn't care.

Silence took its place at the head of the table while a small conversation further down the large piece of furniture noticed this and quickly died out.

Sasuke broke the silence by clearing his throat. "I suppose Naruto-niisan will not be hindered by missing these introductions. Shall we resume?"

Positively toned murmurs answered him, and he grinned a Sasuke grin. "Well, I suppose Hinata's really the last person to be introduced without commotion, so we'll go on with whoever's next to her."

_That Chuunin_ sat to Hinata's left, and presumably had been sitting there since Naruto left to find Misaki, minus when he fell out of the chair, but he now sat there again. He started nervously and asked, "Me?"

"Yes," Sasuke answered coldly, "you."

"Oh," _that Chuunin_ muttered before raising his voice. "I'm Keri Enaku." Silence stretched again, as though he was expected to say something else. "That is all," he added.

The next person going down the table was a redheaded male with dark circles under his eyes and one arm repetitively making a stroking motion under the table, but rather than introduce himself, he pointed out, "Wasn't there a girl who sat here a moment ago?"

"Yes, there was," Sasuke agreed. He backed his chair up and ducked his head under the table. Itachi _knew_ someone somewhere was having a good laugh over the wording of this, considering his brother's hairstyle. "Misaki-hime, come out so everyone can meet you."

The seven-year-old girl crawled out from under the table and asked, "Where can I sit?"

Sasuke shrugged and looked at Itachi with a smile that could be interpreted as friendly only on Opposite Day. "I'm sure Nii-san won't mind…"

And that was why Uzumaki Misaki spent the rest of the gathering sitting in Itachi's lap.

"This is Uzumaki Misaki," Sasuke introduced for her. "She is the daughter of Naruto-niisan and Hinata-san. She is Ayumu's twin sister."

Misaki giggled and waved down the table.

There was a slight transition as all eyes turned to the redhead. "My name," he said, his voice not _quite_ carrying through the room, "is Sabaku no Gaara." He blinked, then grinned slightly as he held up the upper half of the black cat whose abdominal half seemed to be in his lap and under the table. "This is Katena. She's my kitty." The cat _mrawl_ed loudly in what seemed to be a lazy complaint. Enaku inched his chair closer to Hinata and further from Gaara and his cat. Gaara turned to the blonde on his left in indication that she was next.

A few murmurs fanned out as those who could hear ran a quick commentary for those who couldn't. The woman on Gaara's left, whose blonde hair was tied back into four stylish fashion statements of ponytails, waited for this to subside before introducing herself. "I am Sabaku no Temari. Gaara-sama is my younger brother." She turned to the man on her left.

"Yo," the long-haired brunet began casually. His face was almost entirely hidden behind purple embellishment, and his long hair shaped around his Suna forehead protector and his face and tied into a long ponytail in the back. "I'm Sabaku no Kankurou. Temari-san is my older sister, and Gaara-sama is my younger brother." He turned to the next person.

The next person obviously didn't care, as his face was buried in a book. Itachi had seen the orange cover of it before; _Icha Icha something-or-another_, if he remembered correctly. He hadn't been very interested in it; the red circle with a slash through it made him believe it was so adult that there would be no interesting plot.

Behind the orange book, lopsided gray-to-silver-to-white hair poked unevenly upward. The character took his time realizing that he wasn't supposed to read, and when he did, the book dropped only enough for one lazy-looking eye to peer over it. "What?" he asked innocently. "Is there a problem with me reading?"

Sasuke sighed. "We were introducing ourselves. You were next."

"Oh," the platinum-haired man who flaunted a Chuunin's vest answered simply. The bottom half of his face remained obscured by the book, but Itachi saw that the bridge of his nose was covered by navy blue cloth, as well as that one of his eyes was covered by his forehead protector. "I was right at my favorite part though. Oh well." He sighed. "Haven't done this in a while. My name is Hatake Kakashi. I have no intention to tell you my likes and dislikes. My goals should be of no concern to you, either. As for hobbies…I like to do stuff." He buried himself in the book again without doing anything to indicate that he finished or who was next. He giggled as he read the text.

To his left was a dark-haired Chuunin, who sighed when he realized it was his turn and muttered something that Itachi couldn't hear. "I'm Nara Shikamaru," he told, his dark eyes bearing a defensive expression and a small glitter of exasperation. The mission was underestimated, and the only other thing you need to know is that staring is rude." He turned to indicate the next person.

"Um, Shikamaru-san," the next person commented, almost too quietly for Itachi but not quite. "You're not standing up—they're not staring."

"You know as well as I that they _will_," Shikamaru argued. "I'm just warning them."

The man on Shikamaru's left had pale brown hair that barely fit into the stubby ponytail at the base of his neck. Red spirals adorned each cheek, and he shrugged at Shikamaru's answer. "I'm Akimichi Chouji—Shikamaru-kun's teammate, attendant, and friend." He crossed his arms seriously in conclusion.

The next man grinned widely; this action warped the red isosceles triangles that pointed down his face. "I'm Inuzuka Kiba. Hinata-san's teammate. I'd introduce you to Akumaru, but Sasuke-san wouldn't allow him in here." The brunet shook his head disdainfully. "But cats are allowed—what's the deal with that?"

"Katena-chan is well-behaved," Gaara defended, no doubt stroking the cat affectionately under the table.

"The primary concern," Sasuke added, "is that Akumaru is considerably larger, louder, and more energetic than a cat. Furthermore," he went on, "Gaara-sama's wishes have a way of being prioritized."

Kiba _humph_ed and crossed his arms, closing the matter and giving the responsibility of introduction to the last person on that side of the table.

The last man before the foot of the table hid his eyes behind darkened goggles that effectively covered the entire upper half of his face. The lower half of his face was obscured by a solid piece of black cloth attached like a veil, which covered all of his skin down to the gray jacket that he wore under it. "I am Aburame Shino. I am Kiba's teammate as well as Hinata's. I have been Jounin for a few months now."

While Shino sat at the end of the table, two others sat at the very foot of the table, across from Itachi and Sasuke, though not as evenly spaced. The man on Shino's immediate left stood up valiantly, his glossy black hair set in a braid that waved as he shoved away from the table. His bushy eyebrows and excessively round eyes kept a set expression of pure determination, and his build was notably muscular, even through the ANBU uniform. "I am Rock Lee!" he declared, one arm reaching forward to present a hand in a fist except for his thumb, which pointed directly to the ceiling. "I am the Taijutsu master, after my sensei! I am the Green Beast of Konaha!"

He said no more. Silence filled the air. A breeze almost seemed present; someone commented about someone else leaving the door open. A leaf skittered across the floor.

Rock Lee sat down unimpressively. His neighbor, who seemed to have wound up inching so closely to Lee that some minds leapt to the conclusion that Naruto and Enaku's positions were previously awkward, but these two might have something real.

Lee's neighbor had dark brown hair that seemed easily sat on by its owner, and his eyes were the same pale gray as Hinata's, Misaki's, and Ayumu's. He leaned in on Lee, shoulders rigid, and announced stiffly, "I am Hyuuga Neji; teammate of Rock Lee before he surpassed me, and cousin of Hinata-san." He hesitated. "That is all."

Sasuke, waaaaay at the other end of the table, grinned. "Well, Nii-san," he concluded, "that's my side of the family. Care to introduce yours?"

Itachi nodded. "For those who don't know," he began icily, "I am Uchiha Itachi." As was done on the other side, he merely turned to face the next person, in this case Haruka.

Haruka's face lit up. "Hi! I'm Haruka, and I guess I _still_ don't know my family name, which is kind of funny, because it was _at least_ three years ago the Okaa-san and Otou-san took me home, and then all that stuff happened and I was really confused but Nii-san and I most certainly did keep the house from burning down, and that whole event was really weird and crazy and distracting and I guess that's why we were too distracted to tell me my family name, but even three years later I _still_ don't know, because it was really crazy when I first got there and it must have slipped everyone's mind, so—"

Haruka was interrupted by her father setting his hand on top of her head. "That'll do, Haruka-chan."

"But what _is_ my family name?" Haruka wondered.

"Smith," Pein told her rapidly.

"…Smith Haruka?" Haruka wondered. "That's a kinda weird name…"

"We came from the west," Pein told her, his hand still resting on her head. "Where we came from, you'd be Haruka Anderson."

"…that's weird," Haruka commented. "I thought you just said my family name is Smith."

"Of course it is, Haruka-chan," Pein agreed. "Of course it is."

"…well, now what?" Haruka wondered.

"Now," Pein answered, "I introduce myself." He took a relatively slow breath and exhaled partially before announcing, "I am Nemo. That is all you need to know."

"My name is Lucy," Kai lied. "Lucy Smith."

Shikai didn't say anything for a moment. Pein still hadn't removed his hand from Haruka's head. Shikai shrugged, sighed, and said, "I have no idea what they're talking about with the family name, but I know that everyone calls me Shikai. I don't know if I'm Smith Shikai or Anderson Shikai or Shikai Smith or whatever else, but I guess you should just call me Shikai."

Most eyes were on Kisame even before Shikai finished. Kisame sighed and announced, "I am Hoshigaki Kisame. You've probably heard my name before. I apologize for Itachi-kun and myself for any problems we caused. I would appreciate it if you stopped staring."

"I wasn't staring!" Sakura denied without being prompted. "I was just…you know, looking at you, and it was hard to look away, because you're kind of…I mean, not that blue skin, sharp teeth, gills, and a giant sword strapped to your back are intimidating, but they're a little, you know, alarming, at first glance…"

Kisame sighed and leaned back. Deidara was next.

"I'm Deidara, un," Deidara announced, smiling impishly. That was all.

"I'm Akasuna no Sasori," Sasori introduced. "And I suppose that's all I have to say."

Ren came next. "I'm Uchiha Ren. I have been a member of Otou-chan's organization for about a week now." She indicated Tobi, who was on her right and thus the next person to be introduced.

"Tobi is Tobi," Tobi announced, his voice slightly choked. "And Tobi is a good boy, but it seems he wasn't a good _enough_ boy." He hung his head shamefully. Ren patted him on the back soothingly, and shot a glare at Itachi. Misaki, sitting in his lap, squeaked and cowered.

Itachi gawked inwardly, keeping his outer expression calm. Did everyone _seriously_ think that he liked Misaki more than Tobi? He wondered why exactly he hadn't murdered the girl yet.

"I'm Hidan," Hidan announced boredly. "I can't think of any reasons why you'd have heard of my reputation, so I have nothing more to say."

"I'm Kakuzu," Kakuzu sighed, also suffering boredom. "I deny raping Hidan, and I do not endorse coming out to this event."

Murmurs of agreement washed down the Akatsuki-devoted side of the table. It took some time for them to subside long enough for the second-to-last person on Akatsuki's side to introduce herself.

"I'm Rensawa Kitsuchi," Kitsuchi announced, her face bright even without the blue star tattooed on her cheek. "As you may see from my dress, I am not an actual member." She said no more, and thus Zetsu, the last humanoid on Akatsuki's side, was next and last.

"I'm Zetsu," Zetsu's white half announced.

"No, _I_'m Zetsu," their black half argued.

Zetsu's white half sighed. "_We_'re Zetsu," it corrected.

"And we haven't eaten any _real_ food in _ages_," Zetsu's black half announced hungrily.

Neji inched a little closer to Rock Lee, and a little further away from Zetsu.

* * *

**A/n again:** Neji is not gay. Well, he might not be gay. It doesn't matter; he's mostly there to help Sasuke try to intimidate Akatsuki. And to be the lucky dude with Byakugan who has a chance to sit next to Zetsu with them.  
I wish I was Neji. I _really_ want to see what the hell Zetsu looks like under the robe.  
...not that way. Just, seriously, _what the hell is under that cloak?_  
Evidently, something capable of creeping people out. Like Neji.

Due to the nature of my next chapter, I have decided to, rather than leave you with a preview, close this chapter with one line that I hope will describe it well enough. Hopefully, the chapter will be written in time for a well-timed posting (tomorrow):

**To the Holiday Themed Fillermobile, Batman!**


	5. Mountain Climb

**Chapter 5: Mountain Climb  
Something happens!**

**One thing real quick:** So, I actually _planned_ a lot of this story, including the names for titles. At school, I got bored enough to make not only the brief titles like "Father" or "Cat" or whatever, but also, I covered longer titles not unlike the traditional Naruto episode titles, such as "Eat or be Eaten: Panic in the Forest!" or "Gotta See! Gotta Know! Kakashi Sensei's True Face!".  
My question to you is this: if I went through and put those at the top of all the old chapters and hit "Replace Chapters", would it spam you watchers with "New chapter!"? If so, would you mind? Or should I just throw that at the top of the next one?

**A/n:** Oops. That took much longer than I meant...and it's kinda short...um, the next chapter should be a bunch longer--I'm not qute done with that one yet, but I'm getting there! And I'm trying to get off my bum and get posting the story on dA again (two or three chapters are only posted here, I've been trying to keep both going at the same approximate rate), so I'm not going to post that until I've posted the other chapters.

Oh shit. I finally got off my ass and started reading the manga again. And...  
IT'S NOT GOING THAT WAY! Don't worry! I'm on Akatsuki's side! No matter how much it may or may not seem like someone's up to something that could make something happen that would make some people unhappy like some authors who write some stories that some of you people are reading...  
Um...that doesn't make sense...  
What I'm trying to say is: if you're reading the manga, you may or may not notice that a crucial incentive (coughweaselstompingdaycough) of a certain character (coughemoprincewithcrownofduckbuttcough) is making itself evident. And...nuh-uh. Not on my watch. This is what I think he'd **_TRY_** to do; not what he actually will.

Oh dear. I think I out-A/n'd my chapter. Sorry. (not that taking the time to appologize is helping anything...)

**On OCs:** None of them show up. By some strange incident, the only characters who actually appear were created and are owned by Masashi Kishimoto. Creepy. So I have no updates on anyone's OC. Except that they _will_ actually show up next chapter.

**Disclaimer:** Dude, I just said it up there, but I suppose I'll repeat it.  
All the characters who appear in this chapter belong to Masashi Kishimoto.  
...except Ren, who is only mentioned once. She's mine. And she's only mentioned, so all actual appearences go to Kishi's characters.

* * *

Sasori's eyes drooped. Sure, they usually did, but now they _really_ drooped. He was tired; maybe not physically (after all, he _was_ a puppet), but he most certainly _was_ sick and _tired_ of being in Konaha. It was humid and thus encouraged rot, the bugs got stuck in his joints, the leaves were everywhere and doubtlessly stained his exposed toes a peculiar shade of green, and the mountain they were currently climbing was dusty—not sandy (he could _deal_ with sandy, he was used to it), but _dusty_. He'd have to take himself apart and clean out all of those fine little grains of whatever-the-hell-made-this-dust-crap. Which would frighten the little children, and he'd be told to go elsewhere, which wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't for the fact that he hated looking like this totally antisocial, unrefined, reclusive, unfriendly, etc. criminal. Not that there was anything wrong with being a criminal—this just didn't seem the right circumstances for such behavior. 

A few feet ahead of him, Itachi sighed. "Otouto, why are we doing this?"

"Because, Nii-san," Sasuke answered, pausing and turning to face his brother in answer to the question; the other two humans (and Sasori) paused with him. "We're a family—we're all we have for our sentimental comforts." Sasori strongly believed that the younger Uchiha was plotting something, but honestly, the only reason he had to continue thinking this was that his eyes continued to have a cool hostility. Admittedly, it seemed to be an expression burned into his face—he looked even at his own wife and children with that face.

Although, personally, he wasn't sure how happily he'd greet that family—not a lot of people really liked pink for the color of their wife's hair—but nonetheless…

"You _do_ realize," Itachi sighed, "that you have a wife and two children at home who doubtlessly would be much more _willing_ to do things as a family? After all, they had a certain amount of _choice_ in the matter, or they're too young to dislike their families quite yet…"

"But Nii-san," Sasuke whined, his eyebrows knitting together despairingly, even though his eyes held no plea in them, thus creating a very…interesting expression, "you're all I have—and I'm all _you_ have!"

"Otouto, the fact that you insisted that we bring our _brothers_ should prove very well otherwise," Itachi reminded him, gesturing to the spike-haired blond who accompanied them. "We both have obviously been making due without each other, and thus have no need to continue bonding."

"Nii-san," Sasuke told his brother commandingly as he straightened his back authoritatively. The contrast in emotions was stunning, and made it very hard to take the younger Uchiha seriously, despite the fact that he was a few inches taller than Itachi or even Sasori, and might actually have been imposing had he not enforced such a severe case of emotional whiplash. "We are a family. We _have_ to do these things—to _bond_."

Itachi made a face of exasperated frustration. "Tobi-kun said the same thing. That's exactly why we're here—if he hadn't insisted that we act as a family, then we'd still be at home, and considerably more pleasurable than we are currently."

"Exactly," Sasuke growled. "If that made you come here, then it can make you come up with me and my brother."

"That's what got us out of the house," Sasori recalled. "Otouto used that as a reason to make us leave the house—that we were a family, and families took walks through the forest as a group—as a family, it should be added. The reason we came all this way is because he distracted us, and soon enough it was nightfall and we were closer to here than we were to our home. One of our spies showed up, so we sent her ahead of us with Ren-kohai, but she wouldn't go for _Tobi_, so she had to go for us, and in sending her ahead, Otou-sama had to agree that we were actually going here…"

Itachi frowned. "It seemed to make a lot more sense when we were facing spending a night in the forest, unprepared for the elements, with Haruka-san and Shikai-kun…"

Sasori sighed. "And in the end, we didn't arrive before the gates closed for the night, and we were locked out and had to spend a night in the woods anyway." He shuddered at the memory. "Kakuzu-ojiisan tried to throw Hidan-obaasan over it. We were fortunate that Hidan-obaasan was closest, rather than any of the _normal_ people in Akatsuki."

A brief moment of silence made the last phrase he said ring with a false tone. "I'm sorry," Sasori amended. "I just used _Akatsuki_ and _normal_ in the same sentence. I should say that…yes, better Hidan-obaasan than anyone other mortal…well…that's exactly it. If it had been any _mortal_ being rather than Hidan-obaasan…yes, there would have been tears," he sighed.

"…probably," Itachi added.

"No probably about it," Sasori argued. "Haruka-san is rather emotional, after all…"

"Yes, she is," Itachi agreed conditionally. "But you shouldn't automatically rule out that _she_ were the one closest to him. If _she_ were to be the victim, she probably wouldn't feel compelled to lose tears until _after_ she splattered…"

"Hm…I suppose she wouldn't," Sasori agreed.

"Can we _please_ stop talking about…" Naruto interjected. "…_splattering_ little seven-year-old girls on the gates to my village?"

"Hrm…" Itachi sighed, pondering the blond's statement. "…no, I don't think we can…"

"Deidara-chan would have had _such_ a great time if that happened," Sasori speculated, grinning. "All his _Art is fleeting_ shit, he'd doubtlessly have a very _made_ day, unforeseen night in the wilderness or no, as he'd have seen some _true art_ for the first time in a while…"

"Really?" Itachi wondered. "What would _you_ have thought if that happened?"

Sasori chuckled. "She deserved it. All those tea parties, I honestly don't think she deserves an existence much more longstanding than a _fleeting_ one."

"Can we focus on the mountain and not on the potential gory demise of your own daughter?" Naruto asked anxiously. "I'd like to get home soon…"

"She's not my daughter," Sasori snapped, suddenly standoffish, at the same time that Itachi only said the very same words with the same nonchalant tone as she always used. "She's Otou-sama and Okaa-san's," Sasori explained with no assistance from Itachi this time.

"Who's Otou-sama and Okaa-san?" Naruto demanded with a slightly hysteric note, obviously losing anything he might have previously owned that faintly resembled a cool, calm, and collected composure.

Both members of Akatsuki blinked; neither were accustomed to referring to their 'parents' in any way other than _mother_ and _father_. "Um…" Sasori muttered. "They're…the Leader," he described, finally remembering who they were before they were his parents. "And his partner…the only actual girl in the Akatsuki, you know, the blue-haired woman, with the flower, you know?"

"The _older_ female in the Akatsuki," Itachi corrected. "Ren-san is technically a member as well."

"True," Sasori concurred. "…although, Otou-sama _did_ say, you know, _in name onl_—"

"She has a ring," Itachi interjected. "She wears the robe, she lives with us, she acts like us. Name only or not, she _is_ a member."

"Admittedly," Sasori agreed. "I'm just trying to keep the details straight."

"Great!" Naruto exclaimed, seeming on the verge of hysterics. "Can we climb this mountain now or what?"

Sasuke grinned, his cold eyes reflecting that he was, quite undoubtedly, planning something unforeseen. "Yes," he agreed, his voice hissing slightly through his teeth. "We should focus on climbing the mountain and getting home to our families…" Discreetly, he reminded himself where exactly he hid his weapons and exchanged a glance with Naruto, hoping that the blond would realize that he was making the signal.

* * *

**A/n again:** Oh, look at me, I just totally look like I hate Akatsuki now, don't I:sigh: I really haven't been keeping up with the manga, I didn't expect it to get to _that_ plotline so quickly.  
I don't care if you actually want _that_ to happen. I'm still in denial. I think you should be able to tell that--notice how Sasori, Hidan, Kakuzu, Deidara, and...um..."Immature Tobi" (not to be mistaken with **The Evil Madara Uchiha** :evil lightning clash: whose name cannot be said without **Bold Words That All Start With A Capital Letter** and evil lightning clashing in the background) 

**Preview:**  
Sasuke prepares for battle and his long-sought revenge on his brother for the murder of the entire clan. Younger brother will fight older brother, and there will be absolutely no way to predict the outcome as a lightning storm comes out of nowhere and everyone gets totally drenched in the most dramatic and sexy way ever, but it will end with sexiness ruined by brutal injuries and perhaps even **death!**  
But before anyone dies of hypothermia (or sharp things, or "revenge," or pnumonia, or talked-to-death, or some combination...), let's sit by a warm fire and reminisce with the rest of the family, who has hot chocolate, marshmallows, whipped cream, and a totally unnexpected guest visitor with a message for absent Itachi!

(yeah, the focus will be _away_ from the Uchihas, and the OCs will have their names mentioned again.)


	6. Meanwhile

**Chapter 6: Meanwhile  
The in-laws await! But can they sit still???**

**A/n:** Seven pages! Be happy, damnit! And I seriously continue to doubt that I could think of these long-titles, bored as school makes me or not.

Otherwise...despite the fact that a certain line from the Naruto Abriged series lept to mind when I thought up this chapter ("I'm just here to break up the action...hello!"), it's actually a lot more useful than I thought it would be. Arguments on parental methods, whining children, Kisame being poked fun at, "accidentally" slipping some other characters of mine that require me to promote another fanfiction of mine, turning around to poke fun at that OC, inflicting pain on other people's OCs, and then pointless battles fought on misunderstandings that add wonderfully random punctuation to crucial plot are exactly what I made this fanfiction to be about!  
...well, maybe not quite. But still! Although the first half or so took an abrupt and doubtlessly awkward end because I was sick of the conversation...I still liked writing a lot of this!

And what's this second part of the chapter? The only illumination throughout the upper floor starlight and moonlight? Only a single pair of cat's eyes shone within the house, yellow reflection hiding all traces of natural black color? IMAGERY????  
Gosh, I miss writing imagery. That's what drabble-breaks are for C:  
And I also like that fight scene C: I think maybe someday I'll write deleted scenes for this fic, and it will include the battle-side of that battle, rather than plot-punctuated-by-random-goings-on-that-interrupted-it.

**On OCs:** I'm pretty proud of their parts in this chapter. Katena finally has both name and face appear in the same chapter! Enaku...um...may or may not be uncharacteristically stalker-ish. Kitsuchi...would be written in with a lot more interaction if her creater hadn't been so vague about her personality...("It depends on if she likes you or not" isn't terribly descriptive...)  
Oh. And due to t3h r37urn 0f t3h pwn4wsm l337 n1nj4 0f k1llzorz sk1llzorzzzzzz (did I just say that? O.o o.O), footnotes will be enforced. But his lines only creep through once or twice. And, somehow, nobody winds up in the Land of Snow. Interference came too soon.

**Disclaimer:** Okay, if I owned Naruto...dude, the thing probably wouldn't even be considered anime, because I'm not sure if something can be considered anime if it's not made or whatever in Japan, and I live in America, which isn't in Japan.  
And when I made an OC call, there would have been more answers than _just_ enough to fill the originally thought-of slots by default. Instead, the only proposed characters are  
Enaku (c) Skullblade  
Katena (AKA Gaara's bodyguard) (c) daREALshikamaru  
Kitsuchi (c) Kitsuchi-Rensawa-Pwns  
Additionally: Ren, Haruka, and Shikai (c) zopponde  
Everyone else is (c) Masashi Kishimoto.

* * *

_Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock._

Silence would have been much more tolerable if there hadn't been a clock. Pein didn't think that anybody _hadn't_ gotten used to the way it would become quieter and louder as it fought gravity going up and easily dropped as the tables turned and the seconds hand merely fell with control.

_Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock…tick…tock…tick…tock...tick…Tock…Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock._ There. Now it was thirty-_four_ past eight at night. The situation might have been just a _little_ more tolerable if only Sasuke hadn't decided that everyone associated with his little "family" had to spend this time sitting in a room with each other as though they had something to talk about.

"Otou-saaaan," Shikai whined. "Are we doing_ aaaaaanything_?"

"No, Shikai," Pein sighed. "It seems we're not."

"Can we doooo somethiiiing?" Shikai continued to whine.

"Only if you stop talking like that," Pein ordered.

"Okay," Shikai agreed. He waited a few seconds before adding, "Well, I stopped talking like thiiiiis, so can't we do something now?"

"Evidently, we can't," Pein sighed.

"Why not?" Shikai whined.

Pein shrugged.

"Because we haven't _made_ something to do," Kai explained with the familiar I'm-a-member-of-a-very-happy-family smile.

"_Make_ something to do?" Deidara wondered speculatively.

"Something to do," Kai clarified. "Not art."

Another brief silence followed before Sakura suggested, "How about we get to know each other better? That's what the point of this whole thing is, right?"

Another pause separated her suggestion and Hinata's agreement. "O-oh, yeah, that sound like a, a good idea…"

"Do we _have_ to?" Kiba whined. "I'm not sure I want to '_get to know_' a bunch of creepy people like _them_."

Zetsu stood up and walked out of the room.

"We're not _all_ creepy," Kitsuchi argued.

"Well, sure, _you're_ not creepy," Kiba agreed, grinning amiably, "but, seriously, everyone else is…"

"Creepy," Kisame provided, sighing.

"Y-yeah," Kiba concurred, his manner implying that his primary issue came with Kisame.

Kisame sighed, seeming to grin slightly. "If we're going to _get to know each other_, then I suppose it would be best for all of you to know that _neither_ of my parents were sharks, fish, or any other form of sea-dwelling creature, or if they were, they most certainly never told me."

Silence took another grip, lasting for nearly a minute before it was disturbed.

The door slammed open. "Hinata-san, Hinata-san!" Enaku called, having just opened the door as he charged into the room, tripping and falling on his face about two steps into it. "Ow…"

By some fluke of chance, his landing spot was precisely at Hinata's feet. Even in his fall, he managed to keep the imposing bouquet of red roses in his hand from being flattened.

"O-oh," Hinata stammered. "Is that f-for me?"

"Of course it is, Hinata-san!" Enaku fawned as he looked up to her, stars shining bright in his eyes. "You're the sexiest woman on earth—so long as I have _any_ choice, you're the only woman that I'd ever give a flower to!"

"U-um," Hinata stuttered, looking to Sakura pleadingly. "Th-that's nice, a-and all, b-but…a-I'm married, you n-know…"

"Of course you are!" Enaku agreed, eyes wide and glittering. "But haven't you ever thought that you could do _better_ than Naruto-kun?"

"No," Hinata answered meekly, not stuttering for what must have been the first time since Pein met her. "I'm really happy with Naruto-kun."

"But, but!" Enaku delayed, his eyes seeming to tear as the conversation bore on. "I'm your number one f—!"

The Chuunin's protest was cut short by the echoing ring of the doorbell, at which point Hinata stood up abruptly and announced, "I'll get it!" as she trotted to the door, evidently in too much of a rush to avoid kicking Enaku in the face. He "Oof!"ed and reeled into a sitting position, where he rubbed his nose with a face of pure discomfort.

"Hello!" Hinata greeted at the door, not stammering out of what was probably embarrassment.

"Um…" stammered a young woman with short black hair forced into a side-part, who fidgeted uncomfortably with a determined yet anxious expression as she leaned to peek into the room. Her eyes locked onto Tobi's mask and widened almost imperceptibly. "W-we…I was wondering…I mean, I heard that Uchiha Itachi—was in town—here," she corrected.

"Oh," Hinata responded meekly. "W-well, this is where he's staying, and all, but…he's out r-right now…"

"Oh," the girl at the door answered, her town sounding disheartened. "Okay." She sighed. "Do you know when he'll be back?"

"A-I don't know," Hinata admitted. "He should be back tomorrow, but I don't think he'll b-be…in the mood?"

The girl seemed to grin slightly, but it wasn't a happy smile, and her eyes continued to focus on Tobi. "Yes, I suppose not." Her smile faded, her eyes losing focus though they didn't move a millimeter. "Well, thank you for the information. I need to discuss this with a friend of mine, and hopefully our plans won't collide with yours." She turned and left, leaving Hinata to stand in the open doorway for nearly a full minute before she closed the door and returned to her seat, staring at nothing, which seemed to have positioned itself two inches away from Shino's left nostril.

Silence stretched among the group until Haruka broke it, stating simply, "That lady was really weird."

"Don't be so mean, Misaki-chan," Hinata scolded, her voice carrying the distraction that seemed to make her forget that it was not her child who spoke.

"Okaa-san, my head hurts," Misaki whined.

"That's nice, Misaki-chan," Hinata commented distractedly.

Enaku grinned. "I love you, Hinata-chan."

"I love you too, Misaki-chan."

"Will you marry me?" Enaku asked.

"That's incest, Misaki-chan," Hinata explained distractedly. "That's not the way I love you, but I do love you a lot."

"Damn," Enaku hissed under his breath.

"Don't say bad words, Misaki-chan," Hinata scolded dully, still evidently incapable of conscious thought.

"That's not Nee-chan, Okaa-san," Ayumu pointed out.

"That's nice, Misaki-chan," Hinata sighed.

Misaki yawned.

"Oh!" Hinata exclaimed, standing up abruptly and somehow kneeing Enaku in the nose in the process. "It's past your bedtime!" She reached down and plucked Misaki off the ground, muttering, "Oof! That's not so easy as it used to be!" and heading out of the room, seeming to forget Ayumu until he realized he wasn't getting a ride and _thomp_ed off after his mother.

Haruka swiveled the upper half of her body to stare at her mother. "Okaa-san, why did Ayumu-kun have to leave?"

"Because it's his bedtime," Kai explained simply.

"What's that mean?" Haruka wondered.

Sakura stared at Kai critically. "You don't have a bedtime for your children?"

"Maybe I don't run my family like you do," Kai answered, her back stiffening defensively.

"Well, when _do_ your kids go to sleep?" Sakura interrogated.

"When they're tired," Kai snapped back.

Pein sighed, feigning deafness to the entire "Uchiha" branch of his "family". The situation was much more endurable if one were to ignore them and relish in the heat of the fire in the fireplace.

* * *

The full moon's light shone bright in the sky, lighting the treetops with the stars. Within the Uchiha residence, darkness draped the dwellings with shadows of simple silence. The only motion came from the curtains lining opened windows, sending shadows shaped by the illuminating moon into chaos. Only a few very faint cries, most likely those of a dog, echoed to the compound walls to break the silence. 

A single pool of light was interrupted, the shadow swiftly passing through it much faster than any cloud. Black eyes gleamed yellow in the pale light as a feline head turned to scan its surroundings. The shape of a cat could barely be made out to sit at the edge of the window's light, pausing only for discretion's sake and lifting its paw to rub it over its ear coolly. A soft rumbling noise sounded from the cat's throat, filling the silence so strongly that it was nearly expected to rattle windows, but even the soft footsteps of a waking child drowned it out for the duration of each short _pat_. They paused next to the cat and a small, childish and female voice cooed, "Hello, kitty," before the footsteps continued, slightly more hurried this time.

The cat quickly stopped its grooming and continued its patrol, going the same direction as the young girl, and paused half-open door, purring loudly to announce its arrival.

A single window opened the room to the outside world and outlined a single figure who seemed willing to ignore the cat and continue to stare at the starry sky through the open window, his untidily styled hair glistening a shade of red vibrant enough to be recognized even through the dim light. Nearly a full minute passed until, finally, the male figure reached up smoothly to close the window with enough leisure to keep the portal from making any noise, even as the lock slid sideways to keep it closed. He reached over to release the heavy curtains from their restraints, and they fell to block the starlight. Soon the room was enveloped in darkness, objects taking shape slowly and only through the light filtering through the half-open door and the adjacent nightlight.

Finally, the man spoke softly. "Katena-san, you're late."

The cat's purr stopped instantly as it plopped the bottom half of its body to the floor, and a woman's voice answered. "I'd like how long it takes _you_ to hear evidence of fourteen people sleeping."

"Hm," the man hummed briefly. "Please report."

The cat's silhouette mutated, growing until it reached the size and shape of a relatively young woman, plus two odd pointed structures flanking her head, who quickly straightened her back and used an official tone to respond quietly, "Rooms two through—"

A young-sounding gasp caused both figures to turn their visions to the half-open door, where the familiar face of a brunette seven-year-old gawked at the scene. One could recall her name to be Haruka.

The woman groaned, and the points that replaced her ears turned downward somewhat. "Crap."

The man's face, though quite completely covered in darkness, wrinkled the shadows around it with a scowl. "Keep her quiet, Katena-san."

The girl's eyes widened further as the woman sighed. "She's just a kid, Gaara-sama. And _that_ would be incredibly suspicious."

It was the man's turn to sigh. "If I meant _that_, then I'd have done it myself. Take her back to her room, and make sure she doesn't tell her parents."

"Okay," the woman agreed, stepping towards Haruka before vanishing to the brunette's view, which quickly turned to the pure darkness of unconsciousness.

* * *

Gaara watched his bodyguard loom over the innocent child's silhouette, then stoop to catch the girl before she hit the floor and made a noise in her collapse. The long-haired woman looked up at him, eyes gleaming, and he dismissed her, muttering, "Thank you," knowing that her large, pointed ears would pick up his breath. 

The woman nodded and lifted the child into a carrying position and left the light of the doorway and continued into the darkness of the hallway. She hesitated near one door, frowned in thought, and continued to the door after that, which left itself open by about two centimeters. The shadows never left the woman's face, even as she touched the door with the light grace of a trained ninja, the motion slight but successful in opening the door.

Unfortunately for her, however, the action did not only open the room inside to her, but it also opened her to the interior of the room; the air rung as a kunai knife flew past her ear and collided with the wall behind her in a dull _thock_, which seemed to be the cause of an unexpectedly final lapse in the loud snores from the room across from the freshly opened door.

Gaara's bodyguard sighed at all the trouble erupting from one little patrol; in that time, the door of the room awoken by the stray throwing knife opened. Thankfully, the guard could easily recognize the bedraggled brown hair as that of Gaara's brother, rather than another member of Akatsuki, so her primary concern should remain on—

The point-eared woman ducked, only just avoiding a diagonal slice with a large and heavy blade that proceeded to crash into the door to Haruka and her mother's room, as well as the frame.

"Fuck it all!" a male voice screamed from the mouth of the figure wielding the bandage-wrapped blade, the first loud noise in far too long piercing the silence and making Gaara's bodyguard flinch at the sudden volume. "Why the fucking hell is Kisame-san's stupid sword closer than my scythe?"

A single door stood between the freshly decimated one and the door that opened now. "I don't know, why is _your scythe_ leaning against my door instead of Samehada?" a tall figure called down the hall.

"Why the fuck would I—" the louder of the two speaking ninja was interrupted when the distinct clashing noise of a porcelain lamp colliding with a head, and the figure fell forward, appearing dead.

"Small children!"

By this time, quite a few doors along the hallway opened, and for a moment, confusion kept them at truce, but as the ninja whose hair was notably pale even through the darkness rose from his lamp-wound and yelled, "TOBI-CHAN! What the hell are you doing?" it seemed to become obvious that some form of battle broke out, and the "Uchiha", lined up against one wall, ducked behind their doors at the same time as Akatsuki, whose rooms lined the opposite wall.

Only a few seconds later, only one door hadn't reopened with two or more ninja charging out, calling battle cries and wielding various instruments designed to inflict pain of some sort.

The previously semi-blinded darkness in the hallway was replaced with the light of flames, probably created by Ren or Shikai (or both). The woman holding Haruka sighed, feeling a headache approaching, and dashed into her objective room, barely evading a wall of flame that propelled itself forward on a strong wind and directly into a pool of water that made it quickly sizzle out.

As soon as she ducked into the shelter of that semi-safe room, Gaara's bodyguard was aware of a body directly behind her and a kunai held threateningly near her neck.

"Put," a familiar female voice hissed. "Her. Down."

The black-haired woman sighed and set the seven-year-old on the ground in a sleep-like position, at about the same time as a cry of, "Oh god, my eyes! They burn!" topped the cries of various combinations of anger, victory, anguish, determination, confusion, pain, fear, defeat, and occasional laughter that echoed through the walls of the hallway that, considering the various crashing noises echoing through the walls, were not lasting very long. Gaara's bodyguard held her hands to the sides of her head for good measure.

"Who are you?" the blue-haired woman behind her interrogated.

Someone outside sneezed as something came galumphing up the stairs, throwing the distinct scent of a drenched dog into every room that it passed, drowning out the later visitor to the room.

"Repeat that," the upper-handed and older of the two women ordered.

"Katena," Gaara's bodyguard repeated. "My name is Tsukiko Katena."

"What the hell were you doing with my daughter?" Katena's interrogator asked.

"I was taking her back here," Katena provided. "She seemed to have fallen unconscious as she passed my door, and I was just taking her here so as to avoid a commotion." The last word of this was nearly drowned out by a rather loud voice somewhere down the hall yelling, "Nonono, I don't need _more_ shit in my kidney!"

"See how well _that_ worked," she muttered as something crashed through the brittle wall next to the semi-caved door. The figure that was sent through that wall sat up, clutching his head, and declared, "It's okay, I'm alright…un…I think," stood, and charged right back out the hole in the wall made by his intrusion, only to be thrust back through that space and this time recover almost instantly, screaming, "What the hell! I'll make you into a _fine_ work of art! For Sasori-danna!" as he bolted back into action.

Katena felt the kunai knife at her throat drop, and thought she could detect the movement of air waves originating from the woman behind her, the only voice she thought she could hear was a male screaming, "El oh el greater than colon three! Tee three aich el three three seven en one en jay four are three seven you are en five exclamation point!" (1) Another resonating _crash_ followed this cry, the loudest yet.

The woman behind Katena cleared her throat. "Seeing as the house is being decimated over a misunderstanding, I'd imagine that we should try to make them stop destroying the house now," she stated, probably not for the first time.

"Agreed," Katena concurred as the blue-haired kunoichi stepped away from her and into the fray.

Of course, "the fray" was suddenly much quieter, and someone called over the noise, "Everybody _shut up!_ That means _you!_"

"Tee aich ex el oh el en tee are el why!" (2) echoed through what little wall was left in the hall, the brittle remnants notably vibrating at the sound.

"_Especially_ you, Enaku!" the previous voice emphasized authoritatively, earning a "humph!" from his arguer but not stopping someone from sneezing again as a wolf-like growl filled the house and a young voice whined, "I don't like the way he's touching me!"

"_SHUT UP BEFORE I ROLL DOWN THERE AND FLATTEN YOU ALL!_" echoed down the hall, causing all commotion to stop but for a long and drawn out _sluuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuurp_ that lasted long after the end of that sentence.

"Okay," the authoritative voice began. "I think I understand why we're fighting. After all, we _are_ ninja; we were trained, conditioned, even _born_ to fight, so of course we're quick to—"

"Get to the point already!" someone protested.

"Fine," the stopper of the commotion agreed. "Why the hell are we trying to kill each other in all-out battle at one in the morning?"

Nobody answered for a moment, and then someone answered, "Because they're the bad guys!"

The authority in the party sighed. "Let me rephrase my previous statement; _some_ of us are ninja. Others of us are too young to comprehend anything past 'good guys' and 'bad guys'." The voice in question made a mocking noise as the other went on. "We might be designed to kill each other, but that doesn't mean we have to do that just because we're in the same house at one in the morning.

"So, I'd like to ask again," he went on. "Who started fighting first, and why did you start fighting? Because if it's not worthwhile, stop fighting, or at least fight somewhere where you're not going to make the top story of the house collapse. I'd rather be sleeping, honestly."

There was a great deal of hesitation, until someone spoke up. "Someone threw a kunai, and it hit the wall and woke me up."

A murmur of agreement passed through the hallway.

"Who threw the kunai?" the commanding voice asked.

"I did," Haruka's mother answered. "There was a misunderstanding of intentions."

The masculine voice in charge sighed. "Seeing as everybody's woken up for this, I think we could use a better explanation than that."

"I'm honestly not as sure about the whole story myself," Haruka's mother evaded. "So I'm going to assume she can hear this and realizes that I am, indeed, speaking of _her_."

Katena sighed and stepped out of the room, acknowledging the defeat of her secrecy. Most eyes turned to stare at her, first accusingly and then incredulously when the few flames remaining from the battle threw her deformity into light, and she tried to tolerate it as everybody gawked at the distinctly cat-like ears that twitched with slight irritation as they stared. A few at the far end of the hallway seemed unsuccessful at turning to stare, until a certain point that Katena couldn't define, when they all swiveled simultaneously to repeat the actions of the others in the hallway.

"Well," the voice of authority from moments before began, drawing her attention to his figure at the end of the hallway. Automatically, her eyes flickered to his leg, which ended abruptly above the knee, thus forcing the dark-haired veteran to lean on his friend's shoulder. "Care to explain?"

Katena sighed. "I saw the little brunette girl passed out in the hallway, so I started to take her back to her room when her mother detected that someone was entering who wasn't her daughter and attacked."

The veteran raised an eyebrow. "I don't recognize you— who are you, and what were you doing here?"

"I'm Tsukiko Katena," Katena replied, not getting the chance to answer the second part of his question.

"She's with me," an exasperated voice answered, bringing all attention to the redheaded speaker. "When I received the invitation for this event, I realized who would be coming and hired her to come every night and patrol their sleeping quarters to ensure that everything remained safe for me." He grinned sheepishly, and Katena blinked at the unusual expression on Gaara's face. He must have been practicing in the mirror for _days_ to get it down. "I'm a bit too much of a coward to come alone, and I have very uneasy sleep patterns when I'm not sure how safe my surroundings are."

The cripple nodded. "I suppose that's understandable." He frowned. "Now, I'd say that's that and tell everyone to go to bed, but it seems that our privacy has been compromised." Katena would agree; the battle put holes through most walls, merging male-occupant rooms with female-occupant rooms as well as lessening the barrier between "Uchiha" and "Akatsuki". Given the violence that only just ended, the two sides were better off with more separation than less. "Sakura-san, would it be acceptable for us to relocate to another building?"

Sasuke's pink-haired wife thought for a moment as all eyes turned to her, standing in front of one of the few intact doors that Hinata peeked out of. Finally, she nodded. "I'm not sure we could _all _fit into one building," she admitted, "but about half of us could go in one and the other half could stay in the other. That…might actually be safer for…everything," she added tentatively.

Murmurs of agreement echoed from every mouth. Sakura sighed, "Well, I guess I'm the one to show you all your new rooms…"

It took nearly another hour for everyone to settle into the new buildings, but Sakura left the Akatsuki building, reminding them that breakfast was a family event and they were _all_ expected in the dinning hall by eight, thus receiving a wide range of moans and groans.

* * *

**A/n again:** Everyone slept well after that, except Haruka, who awakened from post-KO'd...awakening, when she heard a very loud crash. She looked out her window to see their previous building, which was just across the street, the first story collapsed from strain. 

Additionally: Hidan and Kisame's weapon-swap? That was just a random author-prank. Hey, if we didn't get our kicks out of this, we'd be grounded too long to ever get to the computer and type!  
And I'm only mean to the characters I like. See, Kisame? I really do like you. Even though I'm usually in denial of your entire existance (and Kakuzu's), which disturbs the whole everyone-in-Akatsuki-is-dead-sexy rule, I believe.  
That, or I just like Itachi enough more than you that I keep putting you at the bottom of my mind.

**Notes on leet:  
(1)** _"lol :unendorsed smiley: t3h l337 n1nj4 r37urn5"_ Haha:pose:, the elite ninja returns!  
**(2)** _"thx lol ntrly"_ Thanks, haha...yeah, that was sarcasm.

**Rant: Part of my life:**  
_Sometimes I wonder if I take things too far..._  
So, yeah. Pathetically enough, I often find myself thinking about this fandom and this fanfiction far too often.  
For example, the whole _family_ thing.  
A lot of the children's quirks were based on my own upbringing; Shikai is loosely based off of my foggy memories of my brother's behavior as a...well...youth, which he isn't.  
Ack. He's seventeen now. And his next birthday is in under a month. It terrifies me--I dare not say what his age will be in that month.  
(a member of society! My brother! My Star-Wars-birthday-party, "Pew pew, you're dead!" brother! I can't fathom it!)  
Yeah, those are _really_ foggy memories. But, they're there, and that is namely a strong imagination, a strong belief of good-is-good-and-evil-is-evil, and the belief that you should kill the "bad guys".  
Which is certainly one thing. But you know you're thinking too hard when you're enjoying a pleasant breakfast with your family, and there's syrup on the table, and you reach across it rather than open your mouth and risk slipping "Pass the fucking maple syrup," which is a recurring line in your own fanfiction.

**Preview:** Rain pours down on the two famed Uchihas and their brother-figures as they fight, the youngest ready to finally take revenge for all the pain and suffering brought upon him while the eldest takes his time unbottoning his shirt. After all, Sasuke needs to pause and think over his entire life before he can fight anyone.  
In other words, two words can make a pretty nice summary:  
**_FIGHT SCENE!!!!!!_**


	7. Battle

**Chapter 6: Battle!  
Four go up! Two go down! Really?**

**A/n:** Oh gosh. How long's it been since I updated? Hrm...probably well over a week. Why was that? ...dude, you don't want to know. Long story short, everyone's an idiot, because everyone's on drugs, annorexic, or going to join the military. And yes, _everyone_. As in my cats are included.  
I think you all should know, I _tried_ to keep it non-depressing, but that's been hard for me. Depression has been at a high lately, and I've been finding it pretty hard to not make any humor not sound horribly forced.

:sigh: Yeah, long story short, I appologize for any out-of-character-ness or whatever, and I blame the fact that I was so determined to make it funny and thus something totally unrelated to my actual life.  
And the long sections of _itallic_ text are flashbacks. Because Sasuke's a flashback kinda guy. They were "fun" to write. He got distracted. El oh el. I'll just ignore the fact that he got distracted because I got distracted because I go on tangents a lot.  
PS, if anybody actually read that super-long warning list on the prologue, you'll know I mentioned off-screen character death. Due to flashbacks: Check.

Additionally...yeah. Genjutsu or no, the intended plotline that this story goes through has a conclusion that is vastly different from that which Kishimoto seems to be working up to.

**On OCs:** Once more, an OC-free chapter. Really lightens the load on the disclaimers :)

**Disclaimer:** Actually, no OCs, mine or otherwise, in this chapter.  
All characters appearing are doomed to either die or kill the other at the hands of Masashi Kishimoto (except that he's already done that with some).

* * *

Sasuke's eyes were wide in madness; whether _mad_ was taken to mean _angry_ or _insane_ was arguable. The sun would be beating down from the very top of the sky, but dense clouds took over the light that once kept the mountain path as clear as the day. Rain was doubtlessly imminent, but that didn't change the fact that he didn't want to do _that_ in the rain, and Naruto was obviously not picking up on _any_ of the hints he tried to drop on the blond. Even worse, Itachi and that weird redhead—Saderi, was it?—seemed to have been suspecting him since they arrived, their suspicions only growing as Sasuke jerked his head at them with wide-eyed frustration and incoming insanity with his eyes that screamed, _Moron! Moron! I want to fight! This is the signal! Moron!_ to Naruto. 

It was nearly noon, and Naruto spent almost the entire climb squinting at Sasuke, his confusion acting as a neon sign on his face that doubtlessly revealed much of Sasuke's plan to Itachi and Samoni. Finally, an expression of comprehension dawned on the blond's face. "Ohhhh!" he exclaimed, the epiphany showing on his face quickly fading. "Okay Sasuke, what are you trying to tell me?"

Two sets of faintly amused and curious eyes turned to Sasuke, who slapped his forehead with his palm only for a split second before he realized exactly how much it hurt one's hand to slap a strip of metal protecting one's forehead.

"Naruto," Sasuke hissed, pressing his hand to his eyes. "You're an idiot." He took his hand back and set it near his chest, symmetrical to the other in a pleading gesture. "_The signal_!" he cried. "It's _the signal_!"

"Uhhh, signal…?" Naruto pondered.

Half a minute passed. Sasuke released his breath in a hiss.

Another half of a minute passed. Itachi raised an eyebrow.

Fifteen more seconds passed. Sajobi sighed and kicked a small rock softly over the edge.

Five seconds passed. Someone below the mountain cried, "Ow!"

Twenty seconds passed. Naruto's eyes lit up. "Oh, _that_ signal!" He frowned, partly determined and partly annoyed with himself. "Right…um…I forgot, did we have anything _specific_ in mind for starting it, or was it just…you know…do it?"

Sasuke sighed. "Just distract the other one."

"Okay!" Naruto exclaimed, setting himself into a determined pose. He smiled in determination and lifted an arm to point directly at Samochi. "I am Uzumaki Naruto! You'd better remember it, because I'm going to be the one to take you down, Sasori!"

Sasori. That was his name.

Itachi sighed. "Why does this all seem so familiar…? I feel like I met this kid somewhere before…"

Sasori shrugged. "A past life, or something, maybe?"

Naruto charged at the two Akatsuki, screaming for some reason that neither the puppet nor either of the Uchihas could place. A ball of spinning blue lines formed in one hand as he came.

Sasori disappeared, and Naruto continued his bull-rush. Sasuke hissed something as Itachi remained in the way, and the redhead reappeared behind the charging shinobi.

Moments before the blond struck, he spun on the ball of his foot to push the peculiar sphere into the sneaking puppet's stomach. Sasori's body spun like a pinwheel and flew backwards, until the redhead's body disintegrated from the human form into a great many scattered splinters of…

…a log?

_Substitution_, Sasuke thought bitterly, suddenly being struck by the fact that he didn't need to think at all to know that if only he'd activated his sharingan. He took the time to change his eyes from midnight-black to the blood-red shade of his family's bloodline.

Naruto looked left and right, looking for the puppet while Itachi stood plainly in front of him, prying individual buttons open on his coat from the inside in some emotion that his expression told to be boredom. Sasuke was reminded of his "mission" and smirked. Today was the day. He'd finally have his revenge today. He disappeared and reappeared behind Itachi, who was instantly aware of his brother's presence and, nearly before the younger Uchiha took a position behind him, said, "So, you've finally grown enough to think you can handle me, have you?"

Sasuke glowered. Honestly, he wasn't as certain about his superiority as he knew he should have been when he finally challenged his brother in this showdown, but he didn't have any other chances. He sighed as he recalled why exactly he was going through all the trouble he went through just to kill his brother…

* * *

_What a normal day it had been in the Uchiha household—breakfast with the family, then Sasuke was off to work while Sakura was left to tend the children. Not that Sasuke was one of those "You'll bear my children and then never have anything to do with anything but me and my family again," kind of people (her parents scarcely approved of him in the first place), but Sakura _did_ pay almost all of her attention to the children. _

_Of course, since Sakura was the one who stayed at home, it was also Sakura who first received the message from Hinata, who earned her money working in the Hokage's office. Sasuke found his wife sprinting to meet him on his way home to tell him the news. _

_"Sasuke-kun!" she cried, dashing down the streets. "Sasuke-kun, I need to tell you about something!" _

_Sasuke didn't find her until he was only a block away from the Uchiha home. "Sakura-chan? What is it?" _

_"Hinata-san," Sakura answered, panting slightly after her running. "She—she works in the Hokage's office, right?" _

_"You'd know better than I," Sasuke pointed out. "How's this relevant?" _

_"Well," Sakura fidgeted, "She came over for tea today, and she told me about a…it's a bit of a rumor, but it's not entirely unf—" _

_"What'd she say?" Sasuke asked. _

_"Um," Sakura hesitated, "she said…Tsunade-sama, supposedly she only just read through _everything_ about the Hokage's duties, and she found…well, the system of checks and balances states quite clearly that the Hokage can pardon any guilty party, and it'll be like they did nothing wrong…" _

_"So?" Sasuke wondered. "I'm not exactly a convicted criminal." _

_"B-but," Sakura pointed out, "your brother is." _

_Sasuke glared as he remembered that night when his brother murdered his clan… _

_How enraged he'd felt! The anger! The fury! The excessive flashbacks! He went to Orochimaru to train in order to defeat his brother—and look where that got him! Six years, for one reason or another—that snake wasted Sasuke's time for six years, and then that letter came. _

_That letter told Sasuke of a little girl with Sharingan in the village—it had been delivered directly to Sasuke by a team of ANBU who snuck into his chamber. And he believed it. How could he believe it? It was impossible, and yet he went through all that trouble to escape, had to kill Orochimaru on his way out, and what did he find to console him for an end to his training? _

_Nothing. A bunch of idiots paid to scratch their heads and say, "Well, she was here a moment ago," as though they left a lion sitting in a field of gazelles and expected it to stay put just because it would be convenient—and then there were all the girls, and Tsunade was only the beginning. "Well, since you're here, I may as well remind you that part of 'rebuilding the clan' involves actually _adding_ to the population in the Uchiha name," she said. "You already killed Orochimaru, so it's not like you have anywhere else to go," she said. "The only thing left for you is to become the father of a family and nothing more," she said. _

_Sasuke criticized this theory in the form of a conversation with Sakura. "Tsunade-sama has a point," Sakura argued, face in a severe expression as she nodded. Then she grinned at him sidelong, and said, "The only question is _who_ you want to do it with. And you'd like a familiar face for something so serious as this, wouldn't you?" _

_Sasuke consulted Ino on this. "What the hell am I supposed to do now that everyone's deciding I only have one thing to do?" he wondered. _

_"You should go buy a nice big bouquet of roses," Ino said, leaning over her flower shop's counter with a grin and pointing at the largest display in the store. "That one ought to do nicely—take with you to Sakura-chan's house, say, 'Hey, I'm sorry I kinda duped you to go out and sell my body for theoretical power in the vain hopes of killing my brother, now how about we get married and have sex and restart the Uchiha clan?' Um," she amended, resting her head on her hand as she bit her lip thoughtfully. "Leave out that whole sex thing…and restarting the clan…and marriage…yet!" she added. "She's still living with her parents, and they're kinda overprotective—just ask for dinner at a nice restaurant. She'd accept, flowers or no," Ino went on, winking. "But, yes, at least for the impression on her parents. Insist on the most expensive dish—that she likes, I mean—why spend a hundred dollars on escargot when she hates it? Give her a nice romantic kiss—sorry, I can't really give you tips on that," she added. "Kisses always depend on the person. And walk her home, and…oh, watch a few romances and you'll know _exactly_ what you have to do." _

_She waited for a response; Sasuke only stared at her, in something resembling a panicking glare, until his face brightened and he burst into laughter. "Good one, Ino!" he chuckled, trying to make it look convincing. "That was such a good joke I wasn't even sure it was for a while!" _

_Ino's face fell into the palm of her hand. "That wasn't a joke." _

_Sasuke stared at her. It took nearly a full minute before he responded, "I'm constantly being reminded of how ignorant I am to your situation with Sakura-san, but…wasn't I the reason you two weren't such great friends as you could be? Why are you suddenly on _her_ side?" _

_Ino exhaled sharply in what could have been a chuckle, blowing some hair out of her face in the process until it fell right back into position. "What, are you now _complaining_ that there are more people pushing you towards one girl rather than everyone asking for you for themselves?" She didn't give the Uchiha much time to answer. "And it seems nobody told you of my…orientation," she added, smirking. _

_A few more moments of blank stare put a break between this statement and Sasuke's. "…I have no idea what you mean by—" _

_"Just ask Sakura about it," Ino told him cheerfully. "It'll give you something to talk about over that nice big meal. Now go buy those flowers—double price for the advice and the long wait. Be glad it's only that much more." _

_Sasuke paid the double price, grudgingly—having nothing better to do, he took up the date and later married Sakura, with certain restriction put in place by her parents. _

_It was a depressing marriage. Sakura decided to invite half the village as family, and Sasuke had nobody. The reception was cut short when Ino and TenTen decided to start feeding each other and Sasuke felt a need to leave. In their rush, they forgot that the money set aside for their honeymoon was spent on the wedding dress. The Uchiha residence's wooden floors still had dark stains where the blood didn't come out completely. The bed wasn't yet moved into the right room. The ceiling sprung a leak. It started raining. Another leak sprung. It started snowing. Two more holes in the roof. It hailed. The roof nearly crumbled. Sasuke thought it couldn't get any worse. Then the lightning rod did its job, but only _after_ it fell into the largest of the holes in the roof. _

_Fortunately for Sasuke, he just married a medic-nin who really loved him. _

* * *

Sasuke stared at his older brother and wondered what the hell he was thinking about that got him thinking about that wretched wedding of his. 

Oh yeah.

* * *

_Sasuke stood in the Hokage's office, glaring at her bitterly. "Why?" he nearly growled. "Why the hell did you give him a fucking pardon?" _

_Tsunade glared back at him. "Why do you think? I don't want you going after him." _

_"He murdered my clan," Sasuke pointed out sourly. "My entire clan. Everyone is dead." _

_"Except for you and him," Tsunade argued. "I don't see why everyone always says that _all_ the Uchihas are dead when there are still two of you left—and now you have your own children, so that's four before you even count that girl who disappeared." _

_Sasuke rolled his eyes. "You were lying. You were just making up some reason to make me come back." _

_"Does it matter?" Tsunade sighed. "The point is, at this point in time, letting the whole kill-Itachi-and-avenge-the-clan thing eat you up is only making things worse." _

_"It's not like I was leaving the village or anything," Sasuke defended. _

_"No," Tsunade agreed. "But you _do_ owe a pet store quite a bit of money to compensate for the damage you caused in an attempt to harm their ferrets." _

_"Nobody likes ferrets anyway," Sasuke retorted, arms crossed across his chest in what Tsunade would consider a pout. _

_"Plenty of people like ferrets," Tsunade argued. "The only person I can think of who has any faintly negative disposition to them is you, and that's just because ferrets are like weasels and your brother was named after a weasel." _

_"I still don't see why—" _

_"Sasuke-san," Tsunade addressed sharply, "I could pardon your brother or I could recommend you to a mental hospital. Would you rather be sent to the loony house and away from your wife and your children—who will soon be wanting to hear all about your Sharingan, I'm sure—and then there would only be three sane Uchihas that didn't mysteriously disappear the moment we realized them?" _

_"Oh, now _I_'m the crazy one?" Sasuke whined. "Why the hell am _I_ considered crazy while Nii-san's not?" _

_Tsunade stood up abruptly in anger and her voice rose to a shout. "Because he's not damaging public property because other people have a loose association with the animals that live there! If you keep this argument up then you'll most certainly persuade me that your brother is definitely a criminal and that you're better off in a padded room!" _

_Sasuke flinched slightly at this and thought through the options given to him. Finally, he sighed and relaxed his posture. "Fine. Go ahead and give him a pardon. Act as though nothing happened and I never met any misfortune by his hands. See if I care." He turned around and left the room. _

_'_If she doesn't want me to be blatantly violent_,' he decided, '_I'll just have to put up a friendly front_.' He smirked as he walked home. '_Let's see, how can I get him to come…?_'

* * *

_

Sasuke grinned. "Yes, the reunion front worked perfectly…"

Itachi shook his head at his younger brother. He didn't _used_ to be _this_ crazy, did he?

"Sasuke-kun!" Naruto yelled, running toward the Uchihas. "I can't find the other one any—whoops!"

In the long space between the last two lines of dialogue between the Uchihas, rain began to pour. The blond slipped on the wet stone and happened to bump into Sasuke, who stood precariously close to the edge of the path…

Sasuke cried out as though it would save him as he fell down the sheer mountain, falling without hope of stopping his endless and doubtlessly fatal fall—

How conveniently placed that tree was, for Sasuke to have caught onto it.

Now he had time to scream.

"Naruto, you idiot!" he shrieked. "Number one hyper-active knuckle-head ninja is an _underst_—whoa!" The fragile tree that he hung onto made a cracking noise and bent downward slightly. "Just get me up!" he rephrased, panic creeping into his voice.

Naruto seemed to be trying to invent a jig in his nervousness. "Waduaiduwaduaiduwaduaidu…?" he chanted nearly incoherently.

The tree snapped, and Sasuke fell, screaming like the little girl he always hated but now was about to die as. What a hypocrite.

* * *

Itachi strolled along the base of the mountain. How great it was, to be able to send the _illusion_ of himself going up the mountain with his brother? Rather than succumbing to pneumonia and fever and "revenge" and whatever else a mountain climb on a cold and rainy day could provide, he bought a cone of ice cream and frightened the shit out of the parents of the children on the playground. 

Now all that was done, all he could do was wait near the opening of the mountain path and wait until the time was right for him to illusion himself into the place of his current illusion, and they'd be none the wiser.

_Clack._ Itachi turned around to see what caused the noise and found Sasori, stretching his arms in such a way that apparently made a cracking noise.

"Itachi-san?" Sasori addressed, looking faintly surprised. "I thought you were up there with your brother…and me," he added thoughtfully.

"That's an illusion," Itachi told him boredly. "Do you really think I'd willingly follow my brother up a mountain on an overcast day?"

"Hm," Sasori grunted agreeingly. "Good point. I wish I'd thought of that and asked you to do the same for me." He glowered. "It seems they were planning a battle all along. There was a great deal about _the signal_ and then the blond starts charging, and we're in a fight. That was a little while ago, though," he added.

Itachi frowned. Some distant whining noise seemed to be growing louder. "Do you know what that noise is?" he asked the redhead.

Sasori shook his head. "What noise?"

Oddly, it seemed to have stopped for a second. Then it restarted in few short outbursts of the same approximate value before starting again, gaining volume once more.

"Do you hear it now?" Itachi wondered.

Sasori frowned and listened carefully. "Yes, I think I know what you're talking about…" He folded his arms across his chest in thought. "Do _you_ know what it is?"

Itachi shrugged in an exaggerated motion. "I asked you fir—"

The Uchiha toppled sideways when a heavy bundle tumbled into his coincidentally outstretched arms.

Itachi looked down at the Unidentified Falling Object and realized that what he'd just caught was his own battered and bloodied brother.

_Huh_, he thought. _That's a really weird coincidence_.

Sasuke looked up at his brother with eyes half-closed with imminent unconsciousness. "Nii…san?" he asked quietly. "You…saved me?" His eyes closed and he fell into limp unawareness.

Itachi frowned. "Hm. That was…interesting."

* * *

**A/n again:** There you go. That's why this whole thing is happening.  
Oh. And that last thing. Why did it happen to happen that way? Don't ask. The Author doesn't tell.  
I had a character in an original story once who religiously believed in the Author as a god...  
This post-chapter A/n took too many tangents and got too far off topic, and thus was cut and now is replaced by this scene of a giant robot with an expensive red car for a head stomping the DMV into the ground (which was the topic that this post-chapter A/n was on when it was declared overly-tangent'd and replaced).  
Free insert-prefered-artistic-endeavor-here request for anyone who gets the reference. ;P  
Enjoy the violence that replaced an eventual warning for yuri-dunlikers. 

**Preview:** Okay. So a full-body cast is an overstatement. But it's still a pretty accurate symbol for Sasuke's condition at this point in time.


	8. Pathetic Update

**A/n:** :throws self on hands and knees, pressing top of head to ground: _**I'M SORRY I'M SORRY I'M SORRY I'M SORRY I'M SORRY!** I didn't write much at all! I've been so busy that I can only attempt to appeal with this freewrite thing that I scraped up in my spare time!_

The only reason I'm posting this is because I'd rather not have another chapter posted as an excuse and nothing more...so what do I post? Well, let's think of an accurate name...  
What's the definition of filler? Something along the lines of "something resembling a plot that is used to make it seem as though the author/artist is making progress, used only to keep audience tame while s/he scrambles for some real work to show", right?  
This is what's shown while I'm scrambling to make filler. It's the filler for a filler-plot. Filler filler filler grarg filler.

Proper excuses displayed on profile. Because nobody probably cares anyway, so I might as well just leave it there.

**Disclaimer:** I don't own all the characters. You should know who by now.

* * *

It was clear that there were only two options: to live, or to die.

Which was a pretty rough translation of the thoughts going through Ren's mind as she sat stiffly in the incredibly small stool provided by the twins' parents. Her knees chaffed against the near-ground wood of the table. It might have been a little more bearable if not for all the pink.

_All_ the pink! The table, the chairs, the thimble-cup tea set full of tap water on the table, the _frilly dress that Ren found herself wearing when she woke up after finding herself quite unconscious after sampling some cookies offered by the very same purple-haired girl who smiled across from the table at her_…

Of course, by now, she realized her folly; she should have been more careful to check for foreign substances—drugs or poisons, things that most certainly do _not_ belong in sugar cookies made from pre-made dough from the store. But, for now, she was faced with a predicament:

Should she accept the lumps of something that looked like some form of dry pink mush, smelled unfamiliar, and that the lavender-haired seven-year-old offered as "cupcakes," or should she guarantee a life past the next few hours and decline them?

The younger girl pouted. "Come _on_, do you want some cupcakes or not? Oba-san made them." She distracted herself with this and grinned. "Oba-san is so _cool_. She's an _Uchiha_—I mean, an **_Uchiha_**. Do you have any idea how cool that is? That she married someone so cool as _the last Uchiha_, and that she has such pretty kids…" She giggled. "Moe-chan's so cute, and I don't think I'm just saying that because she's a baby. But Tsubasa-kun might not hold up with that…but, Sakura-obasan is so cool! Did you know that she was a medic-nin before she married Oji-san? How nice is that? She was taught by the Hokage herself, and she's supposed to be even _better_ than Tsunade-sama is!" She grinned widely and turned to Haruka, who was much better at conversation than Ren. "What about _your_ oba-san? I betcha she's not _that_ awesome—do you _have_ an oba-san?"

Ren's familiar's eyes widened meaningfully, and she leaned in to the purple-haired girl to tell her anxiously, "_My_ oba-san…is a _dragon_."

The pale-eyed girl's eyes widened. "Whoooooa…" Then she frowned. "She breathes fire?"

The brunette shrugged. "I don't know, but Nii-san learned how to breathe fire like that, and I think it was her…"

"Coooool," the unfamiliar child cooed.

"But she can't make cupcakes," Ren's ally sighed, biting into one of the previously offered objects daintily. "At least, not that I know of, and probably not this good."

Ren flinched—the brunette reminded the other of the cupcakes. "Would you like a cupcake, Ren-chan?" the other girl chirped cheerily.

Ren pondered this. The leader's daughter took a few, and nothing horrible happened to her…and if that changed, Ren would certainly have enough of an advance warning to kill the maker of these cupcake-things and the girl who offered them. Furthermore, she would doubtlessly be scolded by _someone_ if this girl threw a tantrum over her not eating them, which somehow didn't seem so unlikely as it could be…

Fine, Ren thought, and extended her hand to take one of the individually wrapped offered objects.

The purple-haired girl smiled innocently. "Yay! Ren-chan wants a cupcake!"

_Who are you, the narrator?_ Ren wondered bitterly as she peeled back the paper wrapper and bit into the "cupcake," which, as it turns out, was only pink mush on the top, and bit into that with some of the non-pink part, which looked something like white bread.

An unfamiliar taste filled her mouth, so strong that she immediately spat it out onto some of the detached paper.

Purple-Hair frowned. "Come on, Oba-san's cooking is _good_! What don't you like about it?"

Ren had some sort of snappy retort in mind, but a wave of aftertaste flooded her mouth.

She couldn't describe it. It was wonderful. Suddenly, she was struck by defiance—why hadn't she tasted this before? And when they left, she'd probably never taste it again.

She had to have more.

Ren pulled the rest of the whatever-it-was—thanking herself for not throwing it away—up to her mouth and bit half of the remaining…what was it called? A bowlpie? The best thing ever, she'd rename it as she chewed the second bite.

Somehow, the second seemed better than the first—it melted in her mouth, that beautiful foreign taste. Her mind leapt to days when she obsessed over ninja training, back in this very village, when she first defeated another classmate in sparring. That was as perfect a feeling as this, she dared say, even though the strongest of that taste melted to nothing. Even the bread-like part redefined perfection, the barriers between the ever-tiny sponge-like pores dissolving to form beads of fragilely flawless flavor.

Ren opened her eyes to stop dreaming and saw Purple-Hair make a confused face.

"Um…okay," Purple-Hair said tentatively. "Weirdo," she muttered to Brunette Ally, quiet enough that Ren probably wasn't supposed to hear.

Ren glowered at Purple-Hair and Brunette as she crammed the rest of the sweet wonder into her mouth.

The pink quickly melted into a river of pure perfection, flowing across her mouth and carrying the broken pieces of the paler element with it.

Beautiful. Ren didn't want to stop eating these things.


	9. Conversation

**A/n**: Ahhh, how long has it been since--...  
-realizes that she's talking to dust-  
Ummm...ahem.

Fourteenpagesbehappydamnit.

I'll try to make the next one long like this. See how well that turns out.

**On OCs**: Not much happens. The OCs seem to be forming a clique, though. And Skullblade, congratulations! Enaku seems to be upgrading from Static to Dynamic!

**Special Warning**: Hidan will be eating nothing but soap for the next ten days, or until he belches bubbles.

**Disclaimer**: C-O-P-Y-R-I-T. Find out what it means to me. C-O-P-Y-R-I-T. Characters not mine mostly.  
(stopping that before getting shot) Katena is daREALshikamaru's. Enaku is Skullblade's. Kitsuchi-Rensawa-Pwns owns someone here, and it probably doesn't take much of a guess to figure out who. All other characters are either mine or Masashi Kishimoto's. I'm too lazy to list out mine, much less his, but you should know by now which is which.

**Special Thanks**: daREALshikamaru, thank you very much for doing a stupid check on my grammar. I swear, if I read through this thing one more time, I probably would have decided that none of it was any good and said, "Sorry, I need to rewrite this," and not be heard from again until September.

* * *

Itachi sighed. The hospital was boring. The white curtains keeping the lovely view out were boring. The white walls were boring. The single white flower nearing wilting point in a white vase on the white table by the white-sheet bed was boring. The hospital was definitely boring. And maybe racist.

Sasuke was still unconscious in his bed. Whoever decided that a sleeping Sasuke and a sleepless Itachi would be a safe combination in the same room at night was an idiot. Sasori and Naruto were there too, but Naruto was sleeping in his chair and Sasori's mind seemed to have left the puppet form lying in the chair as if asleep (why pretending to be asleep was so great, Itachi would never know) and thusly everyone was still boring.

Itachi liked the night. The darkness was soothing on his eyes. But all it took was white curtains and white walls and white sheets and white flowers plus the LED nightlight (sounded like an oxymoron to Itachi) and one Uchiha wished he brought money to buy sunglasses.

The door burst open. A hysterical Sakura ran in, calling, "Sasuke-kun! Sasuke-kun!"

Itachi sighed. Great, he thought sarcastically, a hysterical lover.

Sasori's detachment was proven true as Sakura ran past his chair and knocked him over. The clattering commotion that came with it made her screech and cower away from the wooden body, toward the opposite direction which happened to be inhabited by Naruto. The average heavy sleeper would not sleep through her shriek and fall; Naruto stirred and rolled over, mumbling something incoherent. Sakura cursed and stood, then nearly flew to Sasuke's bedside, exclaiming "SASUKE-KUN!" as she went.

From the doorway, Hinata scurried in, holding one Uchiha child in her arms, carrying another in a special backpack, leading Misaki and Ayumu by the hand. She stopped at Naruto's less-than-conscious form, and her children folded around him; the Uchiha children were asleep and had no protest to make that they were not seeing to their father's well-being.

Sasori's limp body shifted as gravity pulled it to a position with a lower average height. Ayumu lost interest in his sleeping father and moved further from his mother to poke the puppet's shoulder; the opposite shoulder detached and fell to the floor, and Ayumu fled to his previous position.

Itachi was just happy he was being ignored again for once. At long last, something other than being looked at by people who gasp and cry and faint and make violent threats and poke holes in the bottom of the cup ramen he was about to buy.

Hinata whispered something to Naruto, and he woke abruptly with a groggy cry of "Restraining order!" A few seconds allowed him to take in his surroundings and mutter, "Oh, right..."

"What happened?" Sakura wondered.

Sasuke apparently had awoken upon his wife's arrival, for it was he who answered, "There was a rock..."

"A rock?" Sakura pondered.

"It was a really big rock," Sasuke agreed. "Like, a rock that you could climb...a mountain."

"A rock? A mountain?" Sakura speculated. "Was it a rock or a mountain?"

"A mountain," Sasuke insisted, sounding annoyed. "The mountain we told you we were going to hike."

Sakura nodded, her eyes wide. "Ohhh, riiight..."

"And we were climbing it..."

"Like you told me you'd do?"

"Yes," Sasuke enforced, sounding thoroughly annoyed. "Can I finish a sentence without you--"

"And you spoke a sentence that kept getting interrupted?" Sakura's brow furrowed in concentration.

Sasuke sighed. "We were climbing a mountain, like we told you we were going to do, and then we had a battle, because...because. And I fell off the cliff. And Nii-san caught me."

Sakura gasped. "And then you fainted?"

"Yeah," Sasuke admitted, clutching his head. "But what else are you going to do after rolling down all that feet of mountainside, get up and jig?"

"I would," Naruto insisted from a few feet away. Itachi suddenly wondered if someone should do something about Sasori.

"Yeah, but you're a doofus," Sakura pointed out. Hinata shook her head, crouched down, and muttered something to Misaki and Ayumu.

"Am not!"

Itachi sighed, leaned back in his chair, and tried to get to sleep. It had been a very long night

* * *

The tension in the room was obvious. Tempers had been shortened dangerously by low sleep caused by Sakura screaming shrilly sometime around two in the morning, some seven hours ago. Rumors spread until Sakura visited each room, looking shaky and telling that Sasuke had been hospitalized and Naruto, Itachi, and Sasori had somehow wound up staying there too. Hinata stood behind her, shepherding Misaki, Ayumu, Moe, and Tsubasa as Sakura stared frantically at each guest and quickly said this to everyone. Tobi seemed worried at first, but soon became cold and distant, muttering something like "serves him right." Deidara was still asleep and had yet to find out that the hostess was gone, much less why.

Eyes shifted from one face to another. Thoughts ran through minds, everything from "Take him out first" to "Bananas should suffice." Beads of sweat formed on the temples of the more peace-willing guests, and the majority of the Akatsuki bore grave expressions. Haruka and Shikai had been locked in their bedroom and would not get into trouble. Anything could set off a battle to level the entire Uchiha complex.

One of the chairs fell over, and all ninjas stood up, many instinctively grasping weapons and taking fighting stances, and a kunai made a dull thud as it hit the wall before they realized the alarm was false. All sat down except for the man with dark hair in a ponytail, whose wooden leg had conjured the clumsiness that created the clatter, and his partner.

"I can't be the only one who's hungry," he drawled. "I'm ordering pizza."

"Pepperoni," Kankuro put in.

"Mushrooms," Kakuzu added.

The one-legged ninja nodded and turned unevenly to go to the kitchen, his brunet partner following.

* * *

Shikamaru leaned on the counter. Walking was a lot harder with a wooden leg than it was with two natural ones.

Chouji fretted over behind the amputee. "Shikamaru, what are you up to? You're not the type to just offer to order pizza..."

"I'm hungry," Shikamaru protested. "And Ino can pick up some pizza on the way."

Chouji gasped. "A-are you sure that's a good idea? I mean, nothing against her being, you know, but..."

"Now that she wasn't officially invited, she's going to be a total bitch," Shikamaru finished. "I know that. But you have to admit that this whole situation is entirely too troublesome for me to handle on my own. We have to keep peace, and the only way to do that is to distract everyone from the fact that we're enemies by occupation. The best way to do that is to introduce something new, and I think Ino would be good for that. We both know that she'll keep conversation on everything except our opposition. And food will only help our cause."

There was a silence, then Chouji muttered, "Yeah, but what about when Sasuke comes back?"

"I'm not sure," Shikamaru admitted. "I didn't hear how badly he was hurt, or how he got hurt, so I don't know if he had any form of medication, how much of it, or the effects it'll have on his personality. Hopefully, he had some form of sedative, and if he did, this may be our chance to have him accept her. If his medication has put him in a good mood, he will be more likely to admit that she's done well in keeping his house around and he just might see how pointless his grudge is. Whatever mood he's in, he'll expose that stupid bias and everyone will know what he thinks, and he'll have scorn until he gives it up. If nothing else, pizza can only improve the room's disposition, and we might put off levelling the complex for another few hours. Things could go wrong, but it's unlikely."

Chouji pondered this. "Yeah, I guess that's right...still smarter than me, Shikamaru."

Shikamaru sighed. "You say that like it makes you stupid. If you keep thinking like that, you'll never get back to your weight."

"But the girls like it better," Chouji protested.

"Your techniques aren't very effective when you're so scrawny," Shikamaru argued through a tired voice. "Girls like it better when you're alive than when you've died because your jutsu wasn't up to stuff."

"And ponytails aren't exactly the latest rave, either," Chouji huffed, crossing his arms over his chest.

Shikamaru sighed again. "I'm calling Ino."

* * *

Tenten slouched on the table, an empty coffee mug clutched in one hand. If she were seen in the office like this, she'd be fired--no make-up, filthy glasses, tangled hair, and no sake in her hand to calm the Hokage. Fortunately, she on the verge of collapse over her own kitchen table, not the only eating surface in the lounge on the third floor of the central tower of Konoha.

A newspaper landed in front of Tenten, and she looked up and smiled. "Morning, love," she greeted, pushing her coffee cup forward in a mental _Please?_

"Morning," Ino chirped back with just as much grin, taking the mug and leaving the brunette to moan at the sunlight she unblocked in leaving.

Tenten groped for the paper and sat up, resigned to her fate of awakening, and scanned the frontlines. She squinted and pushed her glasses up her forehead to read the font more clearly, the squint not leaving as she turned to page A9 and started reading.

"What's wrong with the world today?" Ino wondered as she transferred black coffee from the pot in the maker to the mug in her hand.

"Akatsuki is roaming free in Konoha," Tenten stated, mildly perplexed as her squint turned to a frown. "Sasuke invited them over. And now they're just hanging around at the Uchiha complex, acting like it's just some normal family reunion."

Ino barked a soft laugh. "What plant were they burning at the entrance? Hemp?"

"They have children..."

"They were burning children?" Ino paused, directing a confused scowl at the nearest eye-level wall.

Tenten hesitated. "No... Akatsuki. They have kids now."

"Interesting..." Ino resumed pouring milk into the mug, then two tablespoons of sugar. "Now you can't help wondering what comes next--Orochimaru back again, giving out free shirts and lollipops?"

"That'd be a sight," Tenten chuckled. "But, seriously..." She continued reading the article until she saw words that made her eyes flash. "Ino-chan, look at--"

The coffee pot was set on the table, making a dull "thok" as Tenten looked up. Ino grinned, holding the mug to her lips as she suggested more caffeine than anticipated.

Tenten rolled her eyes. "Oh, hah, hah," she laughed sarcastically. "Like I'm going to drink it like that."

Ino giggled. "Come on, you have to admit it's funny."

"Just get me a mug," Tenten dismissed, waving her hand impatiently as she continued reading. "And can you believe this? There was this big--"

Ominous music played through the phone in a series of beeps. Ino spun on her toes and reached for the pink corded phone and answered in a monotone, "Hello, you have reached 1-800-GET-CASH. If you would like to sell your organs, press one. If you would like to sell your soul, press two. If you would like to sell your children, press three. If you would like to sell your wife, press four. If you would like to make a donation, press five, and a client will find your house and ensure that whatever organs survive the harvesting process go to people who might actually need them--or, wait for this message to end. To repeat this message, press six, which looks an awful lot like five if you think about it."

Tenten nearly grinned. The paper was an outrage, but Ino's decision to program the phone to play different rings for different callers allowed a great deal of variety in greetings.

"Oh, Shikamaru!" Ino continued, sounding surprised and turning faintly pink. "I...well, the phone has different rings depending who's calling, so I thought you were Sasuke...Come on, you have to admit it was funny...Look, just tell me what you want!...Okay...uh-huh...really? That's just silly!...Now, why would he throw a party without us?" The pink was turning to a raging red. "He hates us, doesn't he?...Don't try to soften it! It's true! I haven't seen him since Sakura-san told him about us!...Fine. What do you want me for?...Pizza?! Do I look like a delivery boy?...Oh. That sounds fun...Can I bring Ten-chan?" From spite to embarrassment to anger to eagerness. Tenten decided that it was quite an emotional roller-coaster for a single phone call. "Okie. Be there in a min...um, maybe more like an hour...Come on, showers and coffee and pizza? Isn't that enough stops to make up an hour?...Yeah, I thought so. See you soon or so," Ino concluded, reaching over to hang up.

"Shikamaru-kun called from Sasuke's house?" Tenten checked.

"Yeah," Ino sighed. "Hey, you know that thing about Akatsuki? Sasuke invited about everyone to go except us! Can you believe he left us out of it?"

Tenten sighed. "Well, I didn't, but I think I've had enough time to start believing." She waved the paper vaguely. "I was reading up, remember?"

"Ah, right," Ino agreed, hopping to sit on the counter. "So, Shikamaru invited us over, as long as we bring pizza. We have an hour to get there. Drink your coffee quickly."

Tenten smiled with false cheer and pointed to the coffee pot, then to her empty hand, and Ino grinned to reach for another mug before the phone rang the same tone as it had previously, and launched herself into an automatic, "Hello, you've reached 1-800-WHORE-69. If you would like a child between the ages of two and ten, or your name is Sasuke and you want the usual--"

The smile was on both faces now, and even Tenten heard the static-tainted yell from the other end of the line. "Yeah, yeah," Ino excused, crossing her legs and placing a hand on her knee. She hesitated, then frowned. "That much? I can't pay for that, Shikamaru!"

_'Oh dear_,' Tenten thought, '_financial strain...'_

"Oh, fine. But you better pull through on that. And I should be getting a tip." She hung up before she could be denied.

"What was it this time?" Tenten asked, faintly worried.

Ino sighed and looked at Tenten with eyes begging for pity and assistance. "Five cheese, three pepperoni, one BBQ, one mushroom, all large."

* * *

Shikamaru sighed and hung up. "Who's paying for it?" he wondered. "I'm broke."

Chouji shook his head. "Me too."

Shikamaru leaned away from the counter, and Chouji stepped forward to offer balance. The two of them wobbled into the other room, and as Shikamaru sat next to Shino, he noticed the Uchiha emblem hung on the opposite wall. He grinned, even as he leaned to Shino to suggest he wait for Ino and Tenten at the front gate, and thought, _Of course. Sasuke's going to pay..._

* * *

It was noon. The clouds had finally cleared, and the sun was shining brightly.

It was a pretty good day to show off purple hair.

Misaki tried to make it bounce. She was pretty good at it, if she should say so. Today it was loose, and the white dress she wore helped it stand out. It also didn't clash with Itachi's outfit. She skipped, one hand swinging Itachi's arm as she went, the other attached to Ayumu's hand, which was swung like hers but without the skip. Ayumu was far too macho for that nonsense.

Behind Misaki, Sakura pushed Sasuke's wheelchair, giving a constant _squeak-squeak-squeak-squeak_ in the background. Naruto was also uninjured, and so was Sasori, and of course Hinata was fine, and Tsubasa and Moe both managed to fit on Sasuke's knees--Moe looked funny, though, given that she was still sitting in the specialized backpack made for carrying children.

They were almost home. Misaki could feel the closeness of Sasuke's mansion.

"We're almost home," Sakura narrated. "Just around this corner..."

The sighting of the Uchiha residence always felt like there should be something cool about it. After all, it was the _Uchiha_ house--how cool was that? There should be fireworks above it every time anyone _looked_ at it! But instead, the banner just flapped a little, and the doors twitched slightly in the breeze.

As the party passed through the gates, Sasuke recognized Shino standing in the middle of the path just inside, and seemed to find something suspicious about this.

"Shino-san," Sasuke greeted coolly, "what are you doing out here?"

"Just getting a breath of fresh air," Shino answered with a temperature about ten degrees lower than Sasuke's.

"You don't have to be this far from the street we were lined up on," Sasuke countered, the temperature of his voice dropping well below Shino's competitively.

"Your garden has too many insecticides," Shino retorted, nearing the freezing point of water.

"We're all natural." Sasuke's information came with the puff of fog more seasonal around Christmas than August emitting from his mouth.

Shino's eyebrow twitched. "How did you...?"

Sakura laughed awkwardly. "Actually, Sasuke...there were some mites on the flowers, and--"

Sasuke sighed. "You should have had a gardener look at them first. Come back soon, Shino-san," Sasuke closed the conversation and left, leaving a wake of Naruto and Sasori, who seemed to have bonded over exasperation with quiet Uchihas and walked away a little more slowly than the others.

Shino, having been standing for about three hours waiting for one specific event, sighed and sat down. A few minutes later, he lifted his mask speculatively and let out the coolest breath of air that he could muster. All that emitted were a few bugs that were in the way of his wind pipe, who proceeded to buzz in the air, confused, and return to his skin.

"Sorry," he muttered to the beetles before trying again.

His breath was definitely colder, his bugs decided for him, but it obviously wasn't going visual.

Shino sighed, letting the veil-like cloth fall back into place. "How _does_ he do it...?" he wondered to himself.

Two rapidly paced sets of footsteps interrupted his improvised training. Shino glanced upward, confirming the identities of the approaching duo.

Yeah, that was them. Two or three hours late, making Shino wait and have to face Sasuke. Almost anyone who knew him could make an argument for Sasuke being off his rocker these days--probably for having been off of it for at least five years, pretty certainly more.

The two expected girls approached, and Shino had half a heart to scold them. However, he knew that would do nobody any good, and instead began the conversation with, "He's already here. He's expecting me back soon. I don't want responsibility for bringing you two back, so I'm going to leave a bug for you to follow while I go ahead. Do you mind?"

"Do we have _any_ allies here?" Ino demanded irritably. "First the pizza cooks take forever, now this..."

Shino sighed. "It's going to make you look smarter this way. That'll piss him off more."

"Fine," Ino settled. "But be quick with leading us in. I don't want to wait out here forever."

* * *

Naruto just returned, and he already felt panicked. Could any of his children keep track of themselves? Where did they get these genes for stupid decisions, anyway?

Of all the people Misaki could have found herself so dearly in love with, it had to be Itachi. Not that he had any problems with Itachi, he just...no, he took that back--sure, the kidnap attempt was unsuccessful, but he couldn't help being a little bitter, and it was still Itachi, massacre artist--_nobody knew why_, which probably meant he just did it because some voice somewhere figured he ought to kill them before they suspected him of being crazy. And this was before the sickening age difference -he had a daughter! Who was older than Misaki! Naruto might not have known how old either of his parents were, but he couldn't imagine feeling like that for people older than them!

And Ayumu...okay, there wasn't anything too suspicious about Ayumu running to Haruka just to hold her hand...he thought...but he couldn't help feeling paranoid and setting up shadow clones to spy through the window. You couldn't be too safe around the daughter of the head of the Akatsuki, could you?

Falling in love with Akatsuki...really, where in the family did this idea come from? Certainly not Naruto's head!

It must have come from Hinata, that delinquent...

Having decided that nothing was Naruto's fault (probably), he nodded to himself and listened in on the nearest conversation.

"How troublesome," Shikamaru muttered. "I was _really_ looking forward to some pizza."

"You're the genius," Shino hissed back. "How do you think he did that? It's got to be ninety out--since when does someone's breath fog at _ninety_? If you're so smart, give me some science!"

Shikamaru hesitated before saying, carefully and thoughtfully, as though he was having some great epiphany, "You know, maybe it happened because God did it. Maybe...maybe Sasuke's just God's son or something...if that's the case," he added, eyes widening fearfully, "I must have really pissed off God!"

"That's not science," Shino growled. "That's making an excuse not to explain it properly."

"You're right," Shikamaru agreed, his tone normal again. "A real explanation would mean research. And research is troublesome."

This conversation was boring. Naruto was listening to the second-nearest.

"Psst, Hinata-sama--san," Enaku whispered to Naruto's wife.

_'Oh,_ this _I have to hear_,' Naruto thought bitterly.

"Eh-Enaku-kun," Hinata muttered back, "I-I'm married. I have ch-children. I-I think i-it's time you--you m-moved on and f-found s-s-someone else."

"That's what I'm doing!" Enaku murmured excitedly. "I was asking if you still have those flowers I gave you--they don't grow on trees, you know! Well, I guess they do...but, you know, not the really nice ones! Not the ones you buy at the flower shop and that I spent most of my pay on! Flowers that grow on trees turn into apples and oranges and lemons, and if I tried to climb a tree, I'd probably die."

"Oh!" Hinata muttered her surprise. "I...well, I _think_ they're on the counter...uh-unless Naruto-kun threw them a-out..."

Naruto _did_ throw them out. However, he'd give up ramen for a few days to pay for flowers to get this creep off his wife. This was great! At long last, no more brown-haired chuunin in the window, peeking at his wife and keeping her from undressing in their bedroom!

...Naruto denies all concepts of him being worried about his wife undressing. Well, he did, but not because of _that_. Who wouldn't want their true love to be comfortable to change in their own room? Although there were perks to her comfort in that area...

Ahem.

Next conversation.

"So," Kakashi said, "Icha Icha Tactics--"

Next conversation.

"How did you wind up in a wheelchair?" Kiba wondered incredulously at Sasuke.

"I fell," Sasuke stated, seeming half as shocked by it as Kiba. "I fell off the mountain. All the way down. And Nii-san caught me..."

Kiba's eyes widened in response, and he glanced around quickly before leaning in and whispering, "You mean Itachi, right?"

"Yeah," Sasuke whispered back. "Itachi. He saved me, I guess."

"That...why?" Kiba wondered. "Why would he do that?"

"I haven't the least idea," Sasuke hissed in response.

Huh. Interesting conversation, but it wasn't going anywhere.

"So," the blue-skinned Akatsuki began in a totally different conversation, "It's basically porn."

"Basically," Kakashi answered.

Wow. Two of them were actually bonding. This was strange.

"But it's porn with _plot_," Kakashi defended. "The porn is probably just to solve writer's block. I personally know the author, and he definitely would throw that in there just to feel like he was getting somewhere while keeping himself from going crazy."

"You know him?" Blue-Skin asked, sounding a lot more interested than Naruto would ever have anticipated.

"Well, sort of," Kakashi answered vaguely.

"Can you get me a signed copy?" Kisame--hah! Naruto remembered his name!--wondered.

Naruto just _knew_ Kakashi was grinning under his mask. He didn't even have to glance in that direction, he just _knew_ that Kakashi was smiling. "I'll see what I can do for you."

This was just creepy. Naruto was listening somewhere else.

"This weather must be pretty cool for you," Kitsuchi (purple hair is easily remembered) conversed near the other end of the room.

"A little," Katena admitted, "But the humidity makes up for it. Three times over. And it makes my hair a pain."

"It's not really that bad," Kitsuchi argued. "It's worse in Amegakure."

"That's why I don't go to Amegakure," Katena pointed out.

"I guess that's a good point," Kitsuchi agreed, "but what would you do if you had to go there?"

"I'd deal with it," Katena answered simply. "I didn't really complain about this, but you brought it up."

What was wrong with this picture? Two girls were talking girl things. _Boring_ girl things.

"Honestly, I'm not sure," the white face of the Venus fly-trap answered considerately. "I mean, strictly speaking, we weren't told to do anything _different from usual_ while we're here, but..."

"Come on," the black face insisted, "when was the last time we ate real food?"

"_Ages_," the white face answered, seeming to know the answer before the question was asked. "But, still, the people here are surrounded by other people who see them daily. There are enough of them around here that someone's going to notice if anyone goes missing..."

Naruto shuddered. It would be one thing if one of them had a voice in the others head, and it seemed to be talking to insanity, but there's nothing more peculiar than a person talking to themselves with two different voices.

"You have to admit that this wasn't actually that bad for the budget, though," the Akatsuki with a strange multi-piece mask confided in his white-haired not-rapee. I mean, we didn't spend any money to get here, and we're not paying anything _while_ we're here. All we have to worry about is the tomato crop, which isn't such a concern considering this convenient weather snap."

"Yeah, but it is bad for my fucking _immortality_," the partner hissed back. If I don't fucking murder something, Jashin-sama is going to be _very_ unhappy with me..."

"And I think everyone needs a vacation," the first one went on, ignoring the interruption. "Have you _seen_ the lines on Itachi-kun's face? He's _insanely_ stressed lately."

"More like _stressed because he's surrounded by_ _fucking_ _insane_ _people_ _like_ _you_," the white-hair argued. "One of whom will have _less insane qualities on account of being fucking dead if he can't kill something soon_!"

"Does he really _kill_ you if you stop killing?" the masked Akatsuki wondered conversationally.

"Well, not really," white-hair confessed, "but he takes back the immortality--meaning you stop looking all young when you're not. You take on the appearance of your real age--if you only just joined, that just means you go back to your normal life, if you can avoid the nasty vengeance, but I've been doing this for so long, I'll probably be dust when I stop killing."

"Then go into the forest and kill a deer or something."

"Come on--if you could have deer sacrificed in your name, or you could have people sacrificed in your name, which would you prefer?"

"...Mmmmm, venison..."

"Fuck you too."

"I didn't fuck you in the first place!"

"You were thinking of it!"

"Look, anybody will tell you that I'm not gay. Deidara-chan is. Sasori-kun is. Tobi and Itachi-san are. Ren-chan probably will be, when she realizes what her parents are. I'll bet Haruka-chan is. But I haven't done anything that anybody called gay, and probably never will."

Funny at first, but when it breaks into gay, Naruto listens to a different conversation.

"I _swear_," the Akatsuki Leader muttered to his blue-haired girlfriend, "if I hear _one more gay joke_ about my child..."

Naruto didn't _want_ to know more about this one...

"Hey, Chouji," Neji muttered, "Have you noticed that the girls from our teams are missing?"

"Uh," Chouji hesitated, "Yeah, I noticed."

"I know that, you know," Neji continued, "Tenten has weird hours, and Ino's busy as a teacher, but it's Saturday. Don't you think they'd be able to show up today?"

"Yeah, it's...a little weird," Chouji commented.  
"Do you think Sasuke just didn't invite them?" Neji wondered. "I mean, he wasn't really close to either of them--he never really did anything with either of them, except maybe buy flowers from Ino."

"And the fact that they're...you know..."

"...No, I don't know."

"Never mind."

Hmmm...Chouji was keeping a secret. That meant drama. And whatever drama was, it wasn't boring. The problem was, the secret was remaining a secret and Naruto wouldn't hear exactly what the secret was until much, much later--like, a whole _five minutes of being utterly bored_. Meanwhile, his attention had to be turned to another conversation.

"Oh, it's so _annoying_!" Temari whined. "Once, Gaara was two months old, and he was smelling _awful_, and I look over and find Kankuro reading this stupid book--'Oscar the Farting Dog', I swear--with this _I_ _Can_ _Read_ _By_ _Myself_ bullshit on the front, and he's just like, 'Sorry Temari, I need to go oil my puppets.' And he'd only _just_ gotten his _first_ puppet two weeks ago!"

"I know, un!" the blond Akatsuki agreed. "Sasori-kun does that all the time! 'Hey Sasori-kun, wanna go get ice cream?' And he's just like, 'No, I can't, I have to go refill my tail with super-deadly poison, un!' And I'm thinking, 'What, you even replaced your _brain_ with wood? I'm not that dumb, un!' But, _noooo_, he just denies my existence until he's 'refilled his tail' or whatever! Hey, does your brother insist that it's art?"

Temari sighed over-exaggeratedly. "_All. The fucking. Time._ You knock on his door and why won't he come out to eat? 'I'm making more art!' If I told him that I was making art whenever I blew my fan at something, he'd throw his summoning scroll at me!"

"Don't get me started, un!" the blond insisted. "Sasori-kun never lets me do anything because his art is so much better than mine! What, now we can only have one idea of art? If that was the case, there would be some other dude with a beard and a portrait that everyone saw everywhere, and we'd say, 'Oh, that's the artist, he is, un, nobody else has art unless it's just like his, un.' But we dont!"

Naruto never understood anything an art critic ever said. So he was changing conversations again.

"How can you stand it away from the youthful green trees?" Rock Lee ranted to Kankuro and Gaara.

Naruto knew where this was going. Which was boring. So never mind.

Everyone was having boring conversations. The only people whose conversations he hadn't listened to were the kids, but they were upstairs and his hearing wasn't very good.

But it was good enough to hear the door being knocked on...

* * *

Tenten was very much aware that there was a stick poking into her lower back and at least two twigs caught in her hair. If they sat behind the bushes much longer, she would either cry or develop a very strong need to use a toilet.

Thankfully, Ino decided that they both had enough green, black, and brown blotches on their faces for her to knock on the door and run back to the bush.

_"Why did we bother with the cammo make-up if we're just going to knock on the door?"_ Tenten wanted to ask, but she didn't. She knew it was just Ino's inner drama-queen, and that was fine. Ino's inner drama-queen could cause quite a fuss if not allowed out once in a while, and this was probably the best opportunity she'd have for a while.

Naruto opened the door and stuck his head out. He looked out, left, right, up, and, finally, down.

Rather than shrug and retreat as intended, he stooped down to pick up a bundle of cloth and retreated, calling Sasuke as he went.

Ino looked at Tenten. Tenten looked at Ino. "What the hell was that?" they whispered in synchronization.

Ino pouted. That wasn't there when I knocked."

"You're not the best person at locating details, Ino-chan," Tenten assured soothingly. It's okay to not see everything."

"It wasn't there!" Ino protested. "And what's up with--" She silenced herself and stuck her ear to the wall of the house.

Tenten scrambled to listen to a patch of wall, too. A faint conversation was taking place on the other side of the wall.

"Look, all I'm asking is for you to not specifically name Haruka on that particular list," an unfamiliar female voice sounded nearly pleading. "Just add something like, _And maybe someone else, too_. But he's been getting touchy about that lately, so please don't push it."

"I'm just trying to keep it from being some big surprise," an unrecognizable male voice insisted. "My gay-dar has never failed me before. I'm not wrong, and letting her pop it on him randomly would just be cruel."

Ino's eyes lit up. "A baby?"

Tenten gave Ino a look indicating that her sanity might not be what it used to be. Ino gave Tenten a look indicating that she had no idea what she was talking about and that Tenten was the one who was lost. Tenten sighed.

"Maybe there's a wall here and we're listening to different rooms," she breathed.

Ino's eyes widened knowingly. She nodded and leaned forward to give her partner room to listen to the same conversation.

"...just can't. There's no space for another child here, and I see no reason why it's suddenly my child," Sasuke's voice came faintly but clearly. "Furthermore, that eye looks an awful lot like a Byakugan. Someone probably just knew that Neji-san's staying here."

"Neji-san isn't like that," Hinata defended with only a slight quiver to her tone.

"And I'm a saint," Sasuke added sarcastically. "Neji-san could very well be like that, and I'm not a saint, but I'm not _that_ bad of a person. Furthermore, you're the only Hyuuga girl I know."

"_**Sasuke**_!" Naruto roared. "_You_ _bastard_!"

Sasuke sighed. "No, I'm saying this is why the kid isn't mine. You should have noticed if she was pregnant."

Naruto hesitated and returned with a normal and calm voice. "Oh yeah."

Normally, a face falling into a palm would be undetected through a wall, but a chorus of this action was very audible through a variety of substances. Ino and Tenten were the first to discover this fact.

"But who's kid _is_ it?" Naruto demanded with an air of having his arms crossed over his chest. "If it isn't yours and Hinata-chan's, whose is it?"

Someone sounded as though they spewed a drink. "_Hanabi_?" Neji wondered incredulously.

"She's not any more like that than you are, Neji-san," Hinata pointed out. "She's the head of the family, so there's no reason she would give a child away."

A moment of silence took place as a great deal of thought was had between the thirty-or-so people in the room. Ino sighed and knocked on the door, taking a quick retreat back to the bushes before anyone could answer it.

"No," Naruto enforced. "I'm not answering it. It'll turn out to be another baby."

Sasuke sighed. The door opened, and Sasuke's head poked out. He looked out, left, right, up, and, finally, down. He stooped down and picked up an envelope, then closed the door.

Tenten glanced at Ino. "Did you see that one on the doorstep?" she mouthed.

Ino nodded. "They'll never get their pizza at this rate."

"Itachi," Sasuke announced. "We have a letter for Itachi-san."

Murmurs throughout the room. Someone sobbed.

"Where'd my dear brother go?" Sasuke wondered.

Ino flipped her mirror open and used it to allow both of them to look into the room. All of the Rookie Nine, the kids from Suna, and Team Gai were there, along with about ten people wearing black-and-red robes. One of the black-clad people was descending the stairs, looking an awful lot like Sasuke but for the lines on his face.

Everyone was staring at the newcomer, whom Tenten quickly decided was probably Itachi. Part of the reason she deduced this was because he turned around and began ascending the stairs until Sasuke declared, Wait, Itachi-san. We have a...package for you."

Itachi looked over his shoulder to look at Sasuke. "I don't _do_ babies."

"There's nothing saying that the baby is yours," Sasuke insisted. Tenten noted the crossed fingers held firmly against his back. "Just a letter with your name on it."

A young female voice was heard to call, "Itachi-kun! You better be getting ready for tonight's date!" Itachi's eyes widened slightly and he hurried down the stairs, insisting, "Great, mail, I've been waiting for this, now please let me read it in private." He took the letter and nearly flew outside.

Ino dropped her mirror on the dirt ground and drew her hand under the top of the bushes with lightning speed. Both girls crouched a little lower as if that would keep them from being detected by the ever-feared Uchiha Itachi.

Whether the ducking helped or not, Itachi seemed far too wrapped-up in his letter to notice them. He read it thoroughly, squinted, read it through again, held it two inches from his face, and read it a third time. Finally, he sighed, mumbling, "If only Kakuzu saw the point in investing in me buying glasses..." and turned to go back inside.

As the door closed behind him, Ino popped her hand and mirror back up, and Tenten watched as Sasuke asked, "Well? What is it?"

"Junk mail," Itachi drawled. "Something about a library card expiring."

"Fuck you fucking liar fuck!" a white-haired bearer of the black-and-red coat declared vulgarly. "Fuck, that's fucking what fucking you fucking said fuck after you fucker fucking got the fucky-fuck letter fucking saying fucking that we fucking fuckholes were fucking supposed to fuck-fucking come fucking here fuck!"

The occupants of the room stared. The cursing man sighed and announced, "Fuck I'm just fucking trying to fucking be fucking terrible so I can get the fuck off the fucking hook for fucking not fucking killing any fucking thing. Fuck" he added for good measure.

Ino seemed incapable of holding her laughter in. It took TenTen a few moments to realize that the mirror showed a purple-haired girl who couldn't be more than seven with Byakugan eyes stared in shock at the scene from the top of the stairs.

"Well," Sasuke resumed, not without the air of a less-than-new computer completely deleting a not-so-small file while saving a Word document and opening another at the same time, "Does that mean that you're not telling the _Misaki-san please go to your room this is a grown-up conversation_!"

Hinata gasped and rushed up the stairs, still holding the baby found on the doorstep, muttering things to the child as she went. Misaki (assuming this was her name) continued to stare into the lower room, trying to figure out the meaning of the word repeated so often in those few sentences.

There was a pause, until Sasuke cleared his throat and resumed, his desktop having finally sent unwanted files to the recycle bin and his programs ready to go. "Now. Apparently Nii-san dismissed his invitation to come here to the public as junk mail. If he's calling this new letter junk mail, do you think this is also more important than junk mail?"

Other local people seemed to have been going through the same motions with computers that were either older or with a great deal less disk space. Finally, Naruto shook his head and decided, Yeah, that would make sense! We should steal the letter and read it to see if it's really junk mail!"

Itachi hugged the letter closer and Sasuke's hand made contact with his face. "Now we can't, idiot."

"Yeah we--oh, right," Naruto denied until catching on. "Well...we could--"

"No," Sasuke refused. "No, we couldn't. We really couldn't."

"Itachi," a member of Akatsuki with spiked auburn hair stood and declared. "I order you to give me that letter."

Itachi stood perfectly still for a moment. Well, more like two moments. Well, two moments less than thirty-nine moments. Which is a while to wait for a guy to say "Fine," especially when the person disappoints you by throwing the letter out the window which you were using to spy on that person with.

The man with white hair stood and pointed at Ino's still-exposed mirror and said, "Fuck!"

Itachi looked behind him, looked back forward, and asked, "What?"

"Fuck," the man repeated. "Fuck? Fuck you fucking don't fucking see that fucktastic fucking hand fucking right fucking there fucker?"

Itachi stared back. "You just used fuck as a one-word question..."

"See?" another Akatsuki muttered. "I never raped you. You were asking for it."

"Fuck!"

"Okay."

Throughout this conversation, Tenten couldn't help noticing that the Akatsuki with what seemed to be leaves sticking out of his cloak seemed to have melted into the floor. Ino, however, was more occupied with, "Shit, shit, we just got caught fucking spying on the fucking Akatsuki! Ten-chan, we're going to die!"

Tenten looked at Ino, the stream of tears smearing the cammo face paint, and thought, '_Damn, I should have suggested more than a good dinner when her dog died_.'

"Ten-chan," Ino babbled, These are probably our last seconds together! We need to make the best of it!"

TenTen agreed.

* * *

Sasuke stared out the window. There seemed to be something familiar in the voice he heard muttering from just under his window...

Hey, where'd that freaky two-face Akatsuki plant thing go? He was there a moment ago, but now he was nowhere to be seen. A leafy head emerged from below the windowsill. The strangest member of Akatsuki looked down, and both sides chorused, "Oh." Was that a blush creeping up its face?

"Um," the white face started.

The hand on the black face's side reached into the figure's robe, took out a digital camera and clicked two buttons.

"Hey," the white face protested, "When did you get that?"

"_Ages_ ago," the black face answered vaguely.

"You could have told me," the white face pointed out, putting one arm in a position that would be crossed if the other arm was there. "I really wanted to take pictures that time we took sharpies to Hidan-kaasan's face, but _nooo_, you didn't have a camera!"

"Fuck-fuck!" Probably-Hidan, the man who cursed like no tomorrow, proclaimed. "Fuck that fucking stupid fucking prank was fucking you fucking idiot's fucking idea fuck fuck fuck?"

Rather than respond, the black face murmured, "Hehe...I'm _absolutely_ getting this onto the Internet."

"Since when do you know how to use the Internet?" the Akatsuki leader demanded. "Did we have Internet that whole time and not even know it? Never mind," he added, sitting back down and covering his eyes with his hand. "I don't want to know."

"Hey," the white face pointed out, "does anybody want this letter or not?"

"Shhh," the black face insisted, "I'm trying to film this properly."

Naruto was already at the window, reading the letter with great enthusiasm. "Hey guys, listen to this!

" 'Dear Itachi-kun,' " Naruto began, oblivious to the fact that Itachi had walked outside and appeared to have no intention of returning. " 'Since you have received this letter, I can only assume that you know what has become of us. These five long years apart have likely done to you what they have done to me--they've devastated me beyond all belief.

" 'Although, I suppose it's only been about five months for me. For, you see, in my grief of your words that fateful night, I ran far away and wound up going through a'..."Naruto frowned. "...'time vortex'? What the hell was this lady smoking?" He sighed, shrugged, and continued.

" 'I know it sounds like I've been smoking something'..." Naruto looked up and glared at the most convenient wall, blinked, shook his head, and resumed. "...'but I swear it's true! I will meet you back at my home, and you will see that I have hardly taken the toll of five years without you, love.

" 'Please,' " Naruto continued, " 'This request may be difficult to fulfill, but it will be so much easier than raising Fumiko-chan together in the circumstances we're provided. Please, if it is at all possible, I urge you to unsure Fumiko-chan a normal life in the house of your brother. Sasuke-san will be much more capable of taking care of her than we ever could be.

" 'Sincerely'..." Naruto hesitated, turned his head to one side, squinted, turned it upright, raised an eyebrow, ceased his squint, turned his head the other way, held the letter up to the light, straightened his head again, turned the page upside-down, pulled out a magnifying glass, looked at the letter sideways through the magnifier, and finally declared, "...'Misaki.' Hinata-chan, what did I tell you about letting Misaki-chan watch Doctor Who with you?"

"You're the one who watches Doctor Who," Hinata pointed out, then gasped. "Oh, Naruto-kun! Who wanted to have Misaki-chan give this impression?"

"I don't know," Naruto decided grimly, "but they don't have long to live."

From beneath the windowsill, two gasps were heard, followed by a familiar female voice saying, "Did you hear that? Even Naruto-kun agrees that we won't last long!"

"I love you!" a second female voice declared.

I love you too!" the first agreed.

The black face of the leafy Akatsuki grinned. The white face looked appalled. Sasuke heard a sound that seemed suspiciously similar to that of ripping clothes. Enraged by the idea of someone being raped under his window, Sasuke stomped to the window, stuck his head out, and yelled, "Hey! Stop that sex under my windowsill!"

Ino opened her eyes, suddenly aware that the guy who didn't invite lesbians to parties just walked in on her with Tenten licking her collarbone.

* * *

**A/n again**: I hate to have to state it like this, but whatever. Sasori was not present because he was cleaning out the dust in his joints. Itachi skipped out on the first part because a seven-year-old dragged him off. (Guess which one...)

_Something_ is getting out-of-hand. Probably just me in general.

**Preview**: It's a bird! It's a plane! No, it's Zopponde, flying as gracefully as always _by the seat of her pants!_


End file.
